LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF 


E.  W.  HOWE 


Travel  Letters 

from  == 


New  Zealand 
Australia 


AND 


Africa 


B        E  •  W.   HOWE 


CRANE    &    COMPANY,   TOPEKA,   KANSAS 


Copyright  1913 

By  Crane  C&  Company 

Topeka 


TRAVEL  LETTERS 

from 

NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA, 
AND  AFRICA 


TRAVEL  LETTERS 

FROM  NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA. 


SATURDAY,  JANUARY  4,  1913. — This  is  written  in  the 
Pacific  ocean,  on  the  ship  "Sonoma,"  two  days  out  of 
Sydney,  Australia,  where  we  expect  to  land  next  Mon- 
day. We  have  been  on  the  ship  seventeen  days,  and 
the  passengers  and  servants  seem  as  familiar  as  people 
with  whom  we  have  associated  many  years.  In  the 
main,  we  have  had  a  pleasant  voyage,  although  the 
weather  was  somewhat  boisterous  the  first  few  days  out 
of  San  Francisco.  We  stopped  eight  hours  at  Honolulu, 
and  five  hours  at  Pago  Pago,  in  the  Samoa  Islands. 
There  was  an  elaborate  celebration  on  board  on  Christ- 
mas day,  which  included  a  big  dinner,  speeches,  and  a 
dance,  and  we  also  had  a  similar  New  Year  celebration, 
although  we  actually  had  no  New  Year's  day.  At  a 
late  hour  on  the  31st  of  December  we  crossed  the  180th 
meridian,  and,  when  we  awoke  the  following  morning, 
the  date  was  January  2,  1913.  Ships  sailing  westward 
drop  a  day  on  crossing  the  180th  meridian,  and  ships 
going  eastward  add  a  day.  In  traveling  toward  the 
sun,  the  day  increases  in  length,  and,  in  a  trip  around 
the  world,  this  increase  amounts  to  exactly  twenty- 
four  hours.  Every  day  we  set  our  watches  back  from 
twenty  to  thirty  minutes,  and  when  we  reach  Canton, 

Ohio,  on  our  return,  this  daily  increase  in  the  day's 

(5) 


6  TRAVEL   LETTERS   FROM 

length  will  have  amounted  to  the  day  we  dropped. 
In  traveling  eastward,  you  set  your  watch  forward 
every  day,  and,  on  completion  of  your  journey  around 
the  world,  you  will  have  gained  a  day.  .  .  .  Few 
young  people  travel ;  only  the  old  or  middle-aged  seem 
able  to  afford  it,  while  only  the  young  are  able  to  enjoy 
it.  Adelaide,  my  niece,  is  the  only  youngster  on  the 
ship,  and,  although  she  never  saw  the  sea  until  this  trip, 
she  is  thoroughly  enjoying  it.  She  was  ill  in  a  quiet, 
ladylike  way  two  or  three  days,  but  now  she  has  for- 
gotten all  about  the  motion,  and  dreads  to  leave  the 
"Sonoma"  at  Sydney.  The  stewardess  calls  her  "dear," 
but  invariably  refers  to  me  as  "Mr.  Works."  I  am 
trying  to  get  even  by  inventing  a  new  name  for  the 
stewardess  every  time  I  speak  to  her.  Her  name  is 
Mrs.  Coombs,  but  I  began  by  calling  her  Mrs.  Ashton, 
and  followed  it  with  Mrs.  Bullard,  Mrs.  Comstock,  Mrs. 
Davis,  Mrs.  Everett,  and  on  down  the  alphabet  until 
I  now  call  her  Mrs.  Wheeler.  James,  the  room  steward, 
and  George,  our  dining-room  steward,  know  my  name, 
but  to  the  stewardess  I  am  always  Mr.  Works.  She 
is  an  American,  but  most  of  the  crew  are  English,  or 
Australians,  outside  the  captain  and  his  chief  officers. 
It  is  ship  gossip  that  the  first  officer  is  a  very  able  man, 
but  so  ill-natured  that  he  has  never  been  given  a  ship, 
although  an  older  man  than  the  captain.  It  is  im- 
portant to  understand  your  trade,  but  if  you  hope  to 
get  into  fast  company,  you  must  also  be  polite. 

$  cjj  $ 

Among  the  passengers  is  a  life  insurance  man  named 
Adams,  en  route  to  Australia  to  protest  because  of  un- 
friendly legislation.  His  wife  has  been  seasick  almost 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.  7 

continuously,  and  the  women  say  he  keeps  her  sick  be- 
cause of  too  much  kindness :  that  the  moment  she  gets 
a  little  better,  he  stuffs  her  with  unsuitable  food,  and 
thus  brings  on  another  spell.  He  has  heard  somewhere 
that  champagne  is  good  for  seasickness,  and  keeps  her 
full  half  the  time.  But  however  mistaken  he  may  be 
in  his  treatment,  he  is  certainly  an  attentive  husband, 
and  the  men  are  proud  of  him.  It  is  a  beautiful  sight 
to  see  this  good  husband  modestly  taking  the  air  on 
deck,  after  devoting  hours  to  his  sick  wife.  His  duty 
is  to  his  wife,  and  he  does  not  seem  to  care  for  other 
people.  The  women  take  turns  in  going  down  to  sit 
with  his  wife.  It  was  Adelaide's  turn  this  afternoon, 
and  the  good  husband  walked  awhile  with  me  on  deck. 
He  says  that  a  good  many  years  ago  there  was  a  de- 
mand from  total  abstainers  that  they  be  given  a  better 
life-insurance  rate  than  smokers  and  patrons  of  bar- 
rooms. The  rate  was  granted,  but,  after  long  experi- 
ence, the  experts  of  the  Equitable  and  Mutual  life 
companies  found  that  the  death  rate  among  total  ab- 
stainers was  slightly  greater  than  the  average  death 
rate  among  all  classes. 

$  $j  t$j 

Another  interesting  passenger  as  far  as  Honolulu 
was  the  manager  of  a  sugar  plantation  who  receives 
$18,000  a  year  salary.  He  spent  several  years  in  Porto 
Rico  and  in  the  Hawaiian  Islands,  but  is  now  opening 
a  plantation  in  Mexico.  He  frequently,  has  two  thou- 
sand employees,  and,  as  they  are  constantly  scheming 
to  get  the  best  of  him,  he  delights  in  scheming  to  get 
the  best  of  them.  He  told  me  he  had  been  marked  for 
assassination  several  times,  but  had  always  heard  of 


8  TRAVEL  LETTERS   FROM 

it.  He  finds  that  when  any  body  of  men  engage  in  a 
disreputable  transaction,  several  of  them  are  always 
anxious  to  turn  informers,  and  secure  a  reward.  An 
informer  nearly  always  asks  a  thousand  dollars,  but  he 
will  usually  compromise,  and  take  two  hundred.  If 
you  engage  in  any  kind  of  dirty  work,  remember  that 
some  one  will  know  about  it,  and  sell  you  out.  .  .  .  The 
sugar  man  says  that  reliable  Mexicans  tell  him  that 
during  the  thirty-two  years  Diaz  was  president  of 
Mexico,  he  ordered  forty  thousand  men  shot,  and  that 
he  didn't  make  a  mistake  in  a  single  case. 

$j   $   $ 

The  "Sonoma"  is  a  ten-thousand-ton  ship,  and  has 
been  in  the  Australian  trade  only  a  few  months  since 
it  was  rebuilt  last  winter.  It  ran  between  San  Fran- 
cisco and  Sydney  several  years  ago,  but  the  owners 
claimed  the  business  did  not  pay,  so  the  three  ships 
in  the  line  lay  in  San  Francisco  bay  a  long  time.  Then 
the  owners  decided  to  try  it  again,  and  the  ships  were 
rebuilt,  and  fitted  with  oil-burners.  This  is  the  fifth 
voyage  of  the  "Sonoma"  since  the  owners  changed  their 
minds.  A  good  deal  of  the  trade  has  been  lost,  and  the 
employees  are  very  polite,  with  a  view  of  recovering 
the  lost  business.  We  have  enough  fuel  oil  on  board 
to  run  the  ship  to  Sydney  and  back  to  Honolulu.  We 
all  like  the  ship,  except  that  it  is  a  great  roller.  The 
other  night,  while  the  passengers  were  at  dinner,  a  big 
roll  sent  the  dishes  and  food  into  heaps  on  the  floor, 
and  those  on  deck  were  shot  against  the  rail  with  great 
force.  $,  $  $ 

Captain  Trask  is  a  very  pleasant  man,  and  most  of 
the  passengers  know  him.  Some  captains,  particu- 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.       9 

larly  those  on  the  Atlantic,  see  very  little  of  the  pas- 
sengers, but  on  the  Pacific,  captains  have  little  to  do, 
and  are  more  genial.  On  the  Atlantic,  there  is  always 
something  for  captains  to  do.  Ships  are  seen  fre- 
quently, and  if  it  isn't  ships,  it  is  fog.  But  the  Pacific 
is  very  lonely ;  a  ship  is  rarely  seen  here,  although  we 
have  seen  one  on  this  voyage:  the  "Ventura,"  the 
sister  ship  of  the  "Sonoma."  We  met  the  "Ventura" 
on  Christmas  day,  two  days  out  of  Honolulu,  but  it  went 
by  like  a  race-horse,  and  we  saw  little  of  it.  ...  Ade- 
laide sits  on  Captain  Trask's  left,  a  lady  with  a  maid 
having  secured  the  coveted  place  on  his  right.  He 
likes  to  talk,  and  we  are  already  in  possession  of  many 
of  his  reminiscences.  He  learned  his  trade  as  most 
Americans  do — from  the  ground  up,  and  went  to  sea 
as  a  common  sailor  when  fifteen  years  old.  By  degrees 
he  learned  the  technical  side  of  his  trade,  and  has  been 
around  the  world  many  times  in  sailing  ships.  He  is 
a  big  fellow,  and  I  imagine  he  has  quelled  many  a 
mutiny  with  his  fists.  Occasionally,  early  in  the  morn- 
ing, I  catch  him  punching  the  bag  on  deck,  and  no 
other  man  on  board  is  equally  expert  at  it.  Not  long 
ago,  the  crew  of  the  "Sonoma"  mutinied  at  Sydney, 
in  trying  to  enforce  some  rule  of  the  union,  and  he 
landed  sixty-two  of  them  in  jail.  He  took  the  ship 
back  to  San  Francisco  with  a  new  and  inexperienced 
crew,  and  reached  port  on  time.  He  is  very  good- 
natured  now,  but  I  imagine  that,  on  occasion,  he  would 
be  real  rough,  and  I  shall  behave  myself  while  on 
board.  .  .  .  Poets  love  to  use  the  expression,  "As 
true  as  the  needle  to  the  pole,"  but  Captain  Trask  says 
the  needle  is  not  true  to  the  pole,  and  does  not  point 


10  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

toward  it.  It  isn't  the  pole  that  attracts  the  needle 
of  the  compass,  but  the  Magnetic  North.  A  good  many 
degrees  west  of  the  pole  there  is  a  great  magnetic 
mountain,  and  this,  and  not  the  pole,  attracts  the 
needle  by  which  mariners  guide  their  ships.  The  pole 
has  no  attraction  whatever  for  the  needle  of  the  com- 


Stories  told  by  the  captain  at  dinner  :  In  Australia 
there  once  lived  a  very  rich  and  very  eccentric  old 
bachelor.  A  certain  old  maid  was  very  anxious  to 
capture  him,  and  pursued  him  so  steadily  that  there 
was  considerable  talk  among  the  neighbors.  On  one 
occasion  the  old  bachelor  gave  a  reception  at  his  home, 
and  the  old  maid  was  one  of  the  guests.  During  the 
evening,  the  old  bachelor  invited  the  old  maid  to  walk 
on  the  terrace.  She  thought  he  was  about  to  propose. 

"You  have  a  beautiful  place  here,"  she  said  to  him, 
as  they  walked  about  in  the  moonlight. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "yet  it  lacks  one  thing.  But  for 
that,  I  would  be  a  very  fortunate  and  happy  man." 

The  old  maid  thought  she  had  him  ;  that  he  could 
mean  but  one  thing  :  the  refining  influence  of  a  wife. 

"And  what  is  that?"  she  asked,  coyly. 

"Water,"  the  old  bachelor  replied. 

Australia  is  a  very  dry  country,  and  the  average  Aus- 
tralian longs  for  water  as  you  long  for  money.  .  .  .  The 
captain  says  dogs  never  do  well  at  sea  ;  that  they  soon 
get  fits,  and  die.  In  order  to  have  good  health,  a  dog 
must  have  grass  to  eat.  But  cats  do  well  at  sea. 
When  the  captain  was  master  of  a  sailing  vessel,  he 
owned  a  cat  which  made  three  voyages  around  the 
world  with  him.  He  tells  of  the  smart  tricks  of  this 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.     11 

cat  as  you  tell  of  the  smart  tricks  of  your  dog.  While 
his  ship  was  once  tied  up  at  the  London  docks,  the  cat 
was  prowling  around  other  vessels,  and  one  of  them 
carried  it  three  miles  away,  to  another  loading-dock. 
The  crew  mourned  the  cat  as  dead,  but  one  day  he 
turned  up:  he  had  found  his  way  back  to  the  ship 
through  three  miles  of  London's  streets.  .  .  .  The 
captain  says  there  is  nothing  in  the  story  that  rats  will 
desert  a  sinking  ship ;  he  never  knew  a  ship  to  go  down 
that  was  not  full  of  rats.  In  the  Indian  ocean  he  once 
came  across  an  abandoned  ship,  and  went  aboard  of 
it.  He  found  the  deck  covered  with  rats  that  had 
starved  to  death.  He  tried  to  burn  the  ship,  as  it  was 
a  menace  to  navigation,  but  failed.  Six  months  later, 
two  thousand  miles  away,  he  ran  across  the  same  dan- 
gerous, drifting  hulk.  This  time  he  succeeded  in  burn- 
ing it.  .  .  .  Captain  Trask  says  that  in  the  old  days 
of  wooden  sailing  ships  the  rats  frequently  gnawed 
holes  in  the  bottom,  in  seeking  water.  They  could  hear 
the  rush  of  water  outside,  and,  not  knowing  it  was  salt 
water,  worked  toward  it.  When  a  ship  was  known  to 
be  full  of  rats,  they  were  watered  regularly,  to  pre- 
vent their  sinking  it. 

t£j    Bjj   t£j 

Captain  Trask  says  that  on  one  of  his  voyages  in 
a  sailing  ship,  he  was  hi  company  every  day  with  an- 
other vessel  forty-seven  days.  The  ships  were  of  about 
equal  size,  and  bound  in  the  same  direction.  On  an- 
other occasion,  he  left  New  York  with  a  cargo  of  wheat, 
bound  for  Liverpool.  Another  sailing  ship  went  out 
of  the  harbor  at  the  same  time,  bound  also  for  Liver- 
pool. They  did  not  sight  each  other  during  the  entire 


12  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

voyage,  but  arrived  at  Liverpool  at  almost  the  same 
hour.  .  .  .  The  captain  says  that  after  a  sailor 
has  been  ashore  a  few  weeks,  he  finds  the  first  part  of 
a  voyage  very  irksome,  but  after  that  he  doesn't  care ; 
he  has  spent  six  weeks  beating  around  Cape  Horn 
without  minding  it  much.  Frequently  a  bad  wind 
will  undo  all  that  has  been  accomplished  in  weeks  of 
hard  work.  But  that  is  part  of  the  game,  and  sailors 
usually  take  it  philosophically.  .  .  .  But  a  story 
is  told  of  one  captain  who  fought  two  months  to  round 
Cape  Horn,  where  the  current  and  the  wind  flow  in  a 
southeasterly  direction  three  hundred  days  of  the  year. 
He  was  finally  compelled  to  put  back  to  Buenos  Aires 
for  provisions.  Again  he  struggled  for  two  months 
without  rounding  the  cape,  and  again  he  put  back  to 
Buenos  Aires  for  provisions;  but  while  lying  in  the 
harbor,  he  killed  himself.  Thereupon  the  first  officer 
took  command,  and  rounded  the  Cape  without  the  loss 
of  an  unnecessary  day,  the  wind  and  current  being 
favorable  for  the  first  time  in  months. 
$  $  $j 

At  two  o'clock  one  afternoon,  Old  Neptune  came 
aboard  the  "Sonoma,"  the  ship  having  crossed  the 
equator  early  in  the  morning.  Neptune  was  dressed 
in  a  fantastic  way,  and  followed  by  a  numerous  train, 
including  his  wife,  several  policemen,  a  physician,  a 
barber,  etc.  A  recorder  read  a  long  proclamation,  and 
the  passengers  took  pictures.  It  had  been  rumored 
that  all  those  who  had  not  crossed  the  line  before,  and 
could  not  produce  a  certificate  showing  they  had  been 
across,  would  be  shaved  with  a  wooden  razor,  and 
ducked  in  the  swimming-tank.  There  was  a  good  deal 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.     13 

of  nervousness  among  the  passengers,  but  it  turned 
out  that  the  ceremony  only  referred  to  new  members 
of  the  crew.  About  a  dozen  of  these  were  operated  on, 
greatly  to  the  amusement  of  the  passengers  gathered 
on  the  upper  deck.  A  platform  had  been  erected  be- 
side the  swimming-tank,  and  the  victims  were  seated 
on  this,  one  by  one.  First  they  were  examined  by  the 
doctor,  and  given  a  huge  pill.  Then  they  were  lathered 
with  a  paste  made  of  flour  and  water,  and  shaved  with 
a  huge  wooden  razor.  This  being  completed,  the  vic- 
tim was  thrown  into  the  tank,  and  ducked.  Some- 
times the  victim  fought,  and  this  caused  great  amuse- 
ment. One  of  the  passengers,  a  young  athlete,  went 
through  the  ceremony,  to  amuse  his  friends,  and  he 
pulled  the  barber  into  the  tank.  This  angered  the 
barber,  and  he  began  a  rough  tussle  with  the  passen- 
ger. The  passenger  was  getting  the  best  of  it,  when 
another  member  of  the  crew  went  to  the  barber's 
assistance.  A  friend  of  the  passenger,  who  had  been 
perched  in  the  rigging,  watching  the  exercises,  climbed 
down  hurriedly,  and  was  preparing  to  go  to  his  friend's 
assistance,  when  a  word  from  the  captain  stopped  the 
row ;  but  for  a  time  it  looked  as  though  there  might  be 
a  fight  between  passengers  and  crew.  A  young  mem- 
ber of  the  crew  who  was  being  shaved,  became  gay, 
and  also  pushed  the  barber  into  the  tank.  There  was 
a  shout  of  merriment,  and  when  the  young  fellow  was 
chased  and  brought  back  to  the  platform,  he  con- 
tinued his  joke,  and  pushed  the  doctor  in.  This  caused 
the  barber  to  strike  the  young  fellow,  which  brought 
forth  a  round  of  hissing  from  the  passengers  looking 
on.  Altogether,  the  affair  was  pretty  rough,  but  every- 


14  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

thing  soon  calmed  down,  and  Neptune  and  his  lady, 
and  the  doctor,  and  the  barber  and  his  assistant,  and 
the  policemen,  marched  around  the  deck  and  took  up  a 
collection.  A  collection  was  also  taken  up  by  a  passen- 
ger for  the  twelve  new  members  of  the  crew  who  had 
been  ducked.  Neptune  was  represented  by  a  tall 
young  fellow  we  had  seen  scrubbing  the  decks  every 
morning.  He  wore  a  grotesque  costume,  and  repre- 
sented his  part  very  cleverly,  as  did  the  others.  Soon 
after  Neptune  and  his  court  had  counted  the  money 
taken  hi  the  collection,  the  big  whistle  blew  for  a  fire 
drill,  and  we  had  quite  a  busy  afternoon. 
$  $  $ 

We  had  rather  a  pleasant  Christmas,  in  spite  of  hot 
weather.  Christmas  eve  we  went  to  bed  in  sweltering 
rooms,  with  electric  fans  going,  and  slept  without  cov- 
ering. At  dinner  next  day  we  found  the  dining-room 
prettily  decorated.  We  had  turkey  with  cranberry 
sauce,  plum  pudding,  pumpkin  pie,  etc.  A  good  deal 
of  champagne  was  ordered,  as  it  costs  but  $2.75  per 
quart  on  a  ship  sailing  to  a  foreign  port,  as  against 
$4.50  at  the  average  restaurant.  The  captain's  health 
having  been  proposed,  he  made  a  speech  in  which  he 
complimented  England,  America,  Santa  Glaus,  and 
the  passengers.  He  also  said  the  "Sonoma"  had  been 
talked  about  unjustly  by  officers  of  a  rival  line.  How 
readily  rivals  in  any  calling  talk  about  each  other! 
.  .  .  While  cracking  nuts,  we  began  throwing  little 
rolls  of  paper  at  each  other.  This  soon  filled  the  room 
with  colored  strips  of  paper,  and  the  waiters  got  about 
with  difficulty.  The  captain  began  the  paper-throwing, 
which  was  accepted  as  license  by  the  others.  While 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.  15 

still  seated  in  the  dining-room,  the  second-cabin  passen- 
gers passed  through  the  aisles  in  a  procession,  the  cap- 
tain having  given  them  permission  to  dance  on  the 
main  deck.  They  brought  a  good  violinist  and  piano- 
player  with  them,  and  the  dancing  and  music  con- 
tinued until  midnight.  There  is  a  larger  company  in 
the  second  cabin  than  in  the  first,  and  they  are  much 
livelier.  One  woman,  a  professional  whistler,  gave  a 
performance,  and  attracted  great  applause.  She  is  on 
her  way  to  Australia  to  fill  an  engagement.  The  pianist 
is  a  young  newspaper  man  from  Chicago.  .  .  . 
Maud  Powell,  possibly  the  best  woman  violinist  living, 
was  a  first-cabin  passenger  to  Honolulu,  but  she  did 
no  playing,  although  she  was  agreeable  and  much  liked 
by  the  passengers.  My  room  is  on  the  upper  deck,  near 
where  the  deck  piano  is  located,  and  early  one  morning 
Miss  Powell's  accompanist  played  awhile ;  to  exercise 
his  fingers  a  little,  I  imagine.  It  was  really  a  remark- 
able performance,  and  I  enjoyed  it  almost  alone.  Miss 
Powell  was  entered  on  the  passenger  list  as  Mrs.  Turner, 
her  married  name,  and  her  husband  accompanied  her, 
as  business  manager. 

t$j  t$j  t$j 

Nearly  all  the  passengers  on  the  "Sonoma"  are  old 
travelers.  On  the  Atlantic  you  meet  many  people  who 
have  never  been  over  before,  but  Australia  is  out  of  the 
way,  and  is  usually  visited  only  by  old  travelers.  Sev- 
eral people  I  have  talked  with  have  been  nearly  every- 
where, and  one  man  is  making  his  seventh  trip  around 
the  world.  .  .  .  We  often  have  three  or  four  rain- 
storms and  rainbows  in  a  day.  A  squall  of  rain  came 


16  TRAVEL  LETTERS   FROM 

up  this  afternoon  very  suddenly,  but  in  five  minutes 
we  were  admiring  the  rainbow  that  accompanied  it. 

Bjj    l$J    $ 

We  have  a  wonderful  country  in  the  United  States, 
but  we  pay  very  little  attention  to  ships.  I  heard  the 
captain  say  at  dinner  today  that  the  United  States 
sends  only  twelve  passenger  ships  to  foreign  countries, 
the  "Sonoma"  being  one  of  them,  whereas  England 
sends  eleven  thousand.  Germany  comes  next  with 
five  thousand,  and  little  Japan  has  five  hundred.  Our 
decline  in  shipping  began  with  the  Civil  War ;  we  have 
given  our  attention  to  building  up  the  country,  and  neg- 
lected ship-building.  The  captain  says  that  many  of 
our  rich  men  are  interested  in  foreign  ship  lines,  and 
that  they  impudently  maintain  a  lobby  in  Washington 
to  fight  every  measure  intended  to  benefit  domestic 
shipping.  Our  financiers  will  in  time  gain  control  of 
many  of  the  big  foreign  ship  companies ;  this,  in  the 
captain's  judgment,  will  be  the  final  solution  of  the 
problem.  &  $  ,$, 

The  Atlantic  ocean  is  small  compared  with  the  great 
bulk  of  the  Pacific.  Immense  fields  of  water  never 
parted  by  the  cut-water  of  a  ship  or  steamer  lie  between 
the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  and  Cape  Horn.  Perhaps 
half  of  the  Pacific  is  as  yet  unexplored  and  uncharted. 
In  the  lonely  South  Seas  lie  the  Samoa  islands,  two  of 
which  belong  to  the  United  States.  The  "Sonoma" 
stopped  at  one  of  these  on  the  29th,  and  we  found 
the  harbor  at  Pago  Pago  exceedingly  pretty.  The 
captain  said  we  should  reach  Pago  Pago  at  4  p.  M.,  and 
at  3  :  50  p.  M.  we  went  ashore.  The  "Sonoma"  makes 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.  17 

its  time  as  accurately  as  a  railroad  train.  Two  hours 
before,  the  island  had  been  in  sight,  and  long  before 
turning  into  the  harbor  we  skirted  the  island  so  closely 
that  we  could  see  children  waving  at  us  from  the  shore. 
The  island  is  mountainous,  but  along  the  shore  were 
many  villages  of  grass-covered  houses,  and  many  groves 
of  cocoanut  trees.  The  harbor  of  Pago  Pago  is  com- 
pletely land-locked,  and  has  deep  water,  but  the  moun- 
tains surrounding  it  are  very  high,  and  we  found  the 
weather  very  warm.  As  we  approached  the  dock  we 
passed  the  little  gunboat  "Princeton,"  the  captain  of 
which  acts  as  governor  of  American  Samoa.  His  crew 
comprises  the  defensive  force,  except  that  fifty  natives 
are  employed  by  our  government  to  act  as  police. 
These  men  receive  a  dollar  a  day,  and  the  sons  of  the 
most  aristocratic  native  chiefs  are  anxious  to  enlist. 
The  entire  native  population  of  Tutuila  and  Manua, 
the  two  islands  we  control,  is  seven  thousand,  whereas 
the  total  white  population  is  only  a  hundred.  This  is 
made  up  largely  of  the  crew  of  the  "Princeton."  Mail 
is  received  from  home  only  once  a  month,  and  as  the 
"Sonoma"  was  their  Christmas  boat,  you  can  imagine 
that  nearly  all  of  the  white  population  greeted  our  land- 
ing. Packages  of  newspapers  were  thrown  out  be- 
fore the  lines  were  made  fast,  and  soon  there  was  cheer- 
ing: we  brought  the  news  that  the  naval  school  at 
Annapolis  won  the  football  game  from  Hartford. 
Mingling  with  the  white  men  and  women  of  the  naval 
establishment  were  hundreds  of  natives,  who  looked 
a  good  deal  like  our  Indians,  except  that  they  were 
better  dressed.  One  swell  we  saw  was  barefoot,  and 
carried  a  cane.  The  officers  told  us  he  was  the  head 


18  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

chief  of  a  village.  Sometimes  the  villages  are  not  half 
a  mile  apart,  but  every  one  has  a  chief.  Three  native 
villages  were  in  sight  from  the  deck  of  the  ship  when  we 
landed.  The  best  building  in  Pago  Pago  is  the  house 
of  the  governor,  which  occupies  a  sightly  position  on 
top  of  a  hill  overlooking  the  sea  and  harbor.  There 
are  perhaps  a  dozen  houses  for  the  officers  and  men, 
and  these,  with  a  cold  storage  and  electric-light  plant, 
coal  bunkers,  and  a  small  custom-house,  make  up  the 
naval  station.  In  addition  to  the  "Princeton,"  we 
found  two  or  three  smaller  boats  in  the  harbor.  These 
had  come  from  the  other  islands  after  freight  and  mail 
from  the  "Sonoma."  The  "Dawn"  I  shall  long  re- 
member as  the  dirtiest  boat  I  have  ever  seen.  It  runs 
to  Apia,  fifty  miles  away.  Apia  is  controlled  by  the 
Germans,  and  is  much  larger  than  Pago  Pago.  You 
may  recall  that  a  good  many  years  ago  several  gunboats 
were  loafing  in  Apia  harbor  when  a  great  storm  came  up. 
Two  gunboats  belonging  to  the  United  States  and  two 
belonging  to  Germany  went  ashore,  and  a  good  many 
sailors  were  drowned.  The  incident  was  one  of  the  big 
sensations  at  the  tune.  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  is 
buried  near  Apia,  and  he  wrote  that  the  Samoa  islands 
furnish  the  finest  climate  in  the  world.  .  .  .  We 
spent  five  hours  at  Pago  Pago,  walking  about  and  vis- 
iting with  the  naval  officers  and  their  families.  Most 
of  them  came  to  the  islands  on  the  "Sonoma,"  and  a 
dozen  or  more  of  them  dined  with  us.  The  government 
has  built  a  reservoir  hi  the  hills  back  of  the  town,  and 
water  is  piped  to  all  of  the  houses  occupied  by  the  offi- 
cers. The  naval  people  were  so  glad  to  see  us  that  they 
permitted  us  to  fill  the  ship's  water  tanks  without 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.  19 

charge.  There  are  two  or  three  American  girls  visit- 
ing married  sisters  in  Pago  Pago,  and  they  told  us  they 
had  not  tired  of  the  place  after  an  experience  of  several 
months.  All  of  them  came  over  on  the  "Sonoma," 
and  they  hurried  on  board  to  see  their  friend,  the  cap- 
tain. He  dined  at  the  executive  mansion.  Governor 
Grose's  lady  had  peanut  soup,  and  the  captain  said  it 
was  not  only  new,  but  very  good.  She  also  had  fried 
chicken,  mashed  potatoes,  apple  salad,  and  several 
other  things  the  captain  could  not  remember  when  ques- 
tioned next  morning  at  breakfast,  although  he  spoke 
particularly  of  home-made  butter.  The  governor  owns 
the  cow  we  saw  tied  on  the  hillside  near  the  executive 
mansion.  .  .  .  Hundreds  of  the  natives  were  per- 
mitted to  come  on  board  the  "Sonoma."  Usually 
they  give  a  dance  on  the  parade  ground,  and  assess  the 
passengers  twenty-five  cents  each,  but  the  day  being 
Sunday,  the  missionaries  objected  to  the  usual  dance 
being  given.  However,  Adelaide  and  I  saw  the  dance. 
When  we  came  in  from  one  of  our  three  excursions  on 
shore,  we  found  sixty  or  seventy  native  women  and 
girls  in  the  ladies'  saloon  of  the  ship,  and  they  were 
coaxing  each  other  to  dance ;  it  reminded  me  of  a  coun- 
try party  when  the  different  guests  are  coaxed  to  sing. 
Two  sailors  from  the  "Princeton"  wandered  in,  and 
one  of  them  was  coaxed  to  play  the  piano  for  the  danc- 
ing. He  played  awhile,  but  as  no  one  danced,  he  finally 
quit  in  disgust.  Then  a  native  girl,  after  much  giggling 
and  coaxing,  was  persuaded  to  play,  and  three  or  four 
of  the  girls  danced.  Two  of  them  were  particularly 
good;  so  Adelaide  and  I  saw  the  much-discussed 
Samoan  dance,  in  spite  of  the  missionaries.  But  we 


20  TRAVEL   LETTERS   FROM 

were  the  only  passengers  present;  the  others  were 
ashore  looking  at  postal  cards.  The  dance  will  be 
given  at  the  approaching  San  Francisco  exposition,  a 
speculator  having  arranged  already  for  a  Samoan  vil- 
lage. I  am  certain  I  saw  three  hundred  natives  on 
board  during  our  stay  at  Pago  Pago.  When  I  went 
down  to  the  barber  shop  to  get  shaved  before  dinner, 
I  found  the  room  packed  with  native  women  looking 
at  the  barber's  wares.  A  ship  barber  operates  a  little 
store,  and  his  wares  include  toilet  articles,  clothing, 
medicines,  confectionery,  plug  tobacco,  etc.  I  don't 
know  that  the  Samoan  women  chew  plug  tobacco,  but 
I  saw  a  good  many  of  them  smoking.  By-the-way,  the 
barber  on  the  "Sonoma"  was  barber  on  the  "Siberia" 
when  I  went  to  Japan  several  years  ago. 

$j  &  $ 

The  afternoon  we  left  Honolulu  a  new  passenger 
came  aboard,  and  I  saw  him  first  in  the  smoking-room. 
He  was  very  plain,  and  I  thought  it  my  duty  to  be  nice 
to  him.  He  was  agreeable  enough,  but  not  much  dis- 
posed to  talk.  Later  I  learned  that  he  is  a  member  of 
the  British  Parliament,  and  that  he  has  twenty-eight 
pieces  of  luggage.  He  is  traveling  with  a  doctor,  and 
woman  nurse,  as  he  is  not  well.  Ship  gossip  is  to  the 
effect  that  he  is  a  son  of  Sir  John  Lister,  a  noted  Eng- 
lishman who  has  done  much  in  a  scientific  way.  Lis- 
terine  was  named  for  Sir  John  Lister.  I  do  not  see 
many  talk  to  the  British  celebrity,  except  his  doctor. 
His  nurse  has  been  seasick  ever  since  coming  on  board, 
and  she  cannot  be  of  much  use  to  her  employer.  The 
man  sits  almost  opposite  me  at  the  table,  and  I  am 
satisfied  that  if  anyone  should  look  at  him  steadily,  he 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.  21 

would  leave  the  dining-room.  He  is  very  plain,  and 
knows  it,  in  which  respect  he  is  different  from  Andrew 
Carnegie.  He  is  known  as  "Mr.  Lister,"  and  is  going 
to  South  Africa  to  hunt  lions.  At  first,  the  passen- 
gers picked  at  him  a  good  deal,  but  during  the  long  voy- 
age to  Sydney  he  became  one  of  the  most  popular  men 
on  board,  largely  because  he  is  quiet  and  well-behaved. 
$  $  $ 

One  of  the  passengers  is  an  Australian  who  lived  for 
a  tune  hi  South  Africa,  and  made  money  hi  mining. 
Disposing  of  his  holdings  to  advantage,  he  went  to 
Oregon,  and  engaged  in  apple-growing.  It  is  very 
interesting  to  hear  him  tell  of  his  experiences.  He 
knew  nothing  about  apple-growing  when  he  went  to 
Oregon,  but  "picked  up"  a  practical  knowledge  of  the 
business  through  experience.  One  of  his  "experiences " 
was  losing  $40,000  in  buying  a  bad  orchard.  This 
taught  him  caution,  and  later  he  made  money.  His 
apple-pickers  are  compelled  to  wear  gloves,  and  to 
twist  rather  than  pull  fruit  from  the  trees.  His  spe- 
cialty is  buying  orchards  of  shiftless  owners,  and  re- 
viving them.  I  heard  him  say  last  night  that  there 
were  two  sure  ways  of  making  money  in  the  United 
States:  the  best  is  apple-growing,  and  the  second  is 
sheep-raising.  It  interested  me  greatly  to  hear  that 
a  man  might  learn  a  new  business  and  make  a  success 
of  it  hi  three  or  four  years,  as  this  man  did  in  the  apple 
business.  .  .  .  Captain  Trask  has  great  contempt 
for  the  modern  sailor ;  he  says  any  old  woman  of  fifty 
could  do  the  work  of  a  sailor  these  days,  but  hi  the  old 
days  of  sailing  ships,  seamen  were  compelled  to  work 
very  hard,  and  their  trade  was  a  difficult  one.  The 


22  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

sailors  on  the  "Sonoma,"  almost  without  exception, 
wear  blue  overalls,  and  not  the  wide  pantaloons  you 
associate  with  sailor-men. 

1&  $  $ 

There  is  a  wireless  apparatus  on  board,  and  every 
day  news  of  no  importance  is  posted  in  the  companion- 
way.  The  night  before  Christmas,  when  we  were 
twenty-four  hundred  miles  out,  a  good  many  passen- 
gers sent  messages  to  friends.  .  .  .  When  you  sit 
on  your  porches  at  home,  on  summer  evenings,  you 
hear  locusts  in  the  trees.  Old-fashioned  colored  people 
call  them  jar-bugs.  The  wireless,  when  in  operation, 
sounds  exactly  like  a  locust  buzzing :  a  good  many  of 
the  passengers  have  remarked  the  similarity.  There 
are  two  operators,  one  of  whom  is  always  on  duty. 
One  of  them  is  a  tall  young  fellow  who  does  great  stunts 
hi  the  swimming-pool,  and  the  other  looks  and  talks 
exactly  as  Lieutenant  Rowan  did  when  he  carried  that 
famous  message  to  Garcia. 

&  $  $ 

We  had  an  enjoyable  tune  at  our  New  Year  cele- 
bration. First  there  was  an  elaborate  dinner,  fol- 
lowed by  a  concert  and  dance,  participated  in  by  the 
second-cabin  passengers.  At  the  conclusion  of  the 
concert,  we  all  joined  hands  and  sang,  "Should  Old 
Acquaintance  be  Forgot?"  When  the  dancing  began, 
quadrilles  soon  became  the  fashion,  and  the  affair  re- 
minded me  of  "a  good  tune"  among  neighbors  who 
had  known  each  other  many  years.  Most  of  the  talent 
for  the  concert  was  furnished  by  the  second  cabin, 
although  the  best  two  numbers  came  from  first-class 
passengers.  Refreshments  were  passed  around,  and 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.  23 

the  gayety  continued  until  after  midnight.  Late  in 
the  evening,  some  one  tied  down  the  ship's  big  whistle, 
and  the  trouble  was  not  located  for  five  minutes. 
Members  of  the  crew  also  got  up  a  grotesque  parade, 
headed  by  the  young  man  who  blows  a  cornet  three 
times  a  day  to  announce  when  meals  are  ready.  Be- 
tween quadrilles,  the  passengers  stood  at  the  rail,  and 
looked  at  the  Southern  Cross,  and  found  it  rather  dis- 
appointing ;  near  it  is  a  false  cross  which  looks  rather 
better  than  the  genuine.  The  Southern  Cross  is  seen 
only  in  the  far  South,  and  down  here  everything  in  the 
heavens  is  new  to  Northern  eyes.  Stars  are  more 
numerous  than  at  home,  and  the  night  of  the  dance 
the  heavens  were  particularly  clear,  and  the  sea  very 
smooth.  Further  on,  hi  South  Africa,  the  nights  are 
said  to  be  so  brilliant  that  it  is  possible  to  read  com- 
fortably by  moonlight.  During  the  dance  and  con- 
cert, the  first-class  passengers  became  so  well  ac- 
quainted with  those  hi  the  second  cabin  that  they 
now  go  down  to  visit  them,  which  they  are  at  liberty 
to  do,  although  the  second-cabin  passengers  cannot 
come  up  on  our  deck  without  a  special  invitation  from 
the  captain  or  purser.  Once  a  week  the  captain  dines 
in  the  second  cabin.  The  food  is  about  the  same  in 
the  two  dining-rooms,  but  our  location  is  amidships, 
while  the  second  is  far  aft,  and  the  motion  is  more 
pronounced.  The  difference  in  fare  is  considerable, 
amounting  to  one-quarter  or  a  third. 
$j  $  $ 

One  of  the  most  interesting  men  on  board  is  J.  L. 
Dwyer,  secretary  of  native  affairs  hi  American  Samoa, 
and  chief  district  judge.  He  is  on  his  way  to  Sydney, 


24  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

on  a  vacation.  Judge  Dwyer  has  been  in  Pago  Pago 
five  years.  When  he  arrived,  he  found  a  king  ruling 
over  the  island  of  Manua,  but  he  managed  to  amicably 
dispose  of  His  Majesty  by  making  him  a  district  judge. 
The  king  lived  in  a  five-room  house,  and  Judge  Dwyer 
says  he  was  a  man  of  intelligence,  and  ruled  justly,  but 
he  abdicated  quietly,  and,  as  district  judge,  did  all  he 
could  for  his  people  for  a  salary  of  $25  a  month.  The 
long  died  a  year  or  two  ago,  but  left  a  daughter,  now 
twenty  years  old,  who  will  be  married  shortly  to  a 
white  clerk  in  a  store  at  Pago  Pago.  The  clerk  gave 
Judge  Dwyer  $50  with  which  to  buy  a  wedding  ring 
in  Sydney,  and  the  judge  says  I  may  help  select  it. 
I  have  never  before  been  on  equally  intimate  terms 
with  royalty.  .  .  .  The  Samoan  men  believe  it 
beneath  their  dignity  to  be  annoyed  by  anything  a 
woman  does,  so  there  are  almost  no  quarrels  among 
them  on  account  of  jealousy.  But  if  a  Samoan  woman 
becomes  jealous  of  another  woman,  trouble  may  be  ex- 
pected promptly.  .  .  .  The  natives  have  no  in- 
come except  from  the  sale  of  copra,  which  is  the  dried 
meat  of  the  cocoanut.  Traders  formerly  robbed  them 
unmercifully,  so  the  United  States  Government  now 
attends  to  the  selling  of  copra,  without  expense  to  the 
natives.  The  income  from  this  source  amounts  to 
$20  per  inhabitant  per  year.  ...  In  going  into 
Pago  Pago,  we  saw  a  great  many  churches ;  every  vil- 
lage seemed  to  have  at  least  two.  Judge  Dwyer  says 
there  are  too  many  churches  in  the  islands.  Many 
of  the  preachers  are  natives,  and  much  of  the  money 
obtained  from  copra  is  sent  away  to  missionary  so- 
cieties, for  evangelistic  work  in  other  communities. 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.  25 

Five  of  our  second-cabin  passengers  were  Mormon 
missionaries  for  Pago  Pago.  The  missionaries  are 
thrifty :  I  was  told  that  every  big  institution  in  the 
Hawaiian  islands  is  owned  by  a  descendant  of  the  old 
missionaries.  But  there  is  little  hi  the  Samoan  islands 
to  develop ;  almost  no  agricultural  land,  and  the  little 
there  is  (hi  the  vicinity  of  Apia)  is  in  the  hands  of 
Chinese.  At  Pago  Pago,  all  vegetables  come  from 
San  Francisco,  4,400  miles  away.  A  monthly  paper 
is  printed  hi  Pago  Pago,  by  the  government,  and  dis- 
tributed gratuitously  among  the  natives.  One  col- 
umn out  of  eight  is  devoted  to  English  local  news. 
.  .  .  In  the  two  American  islands  in  Samoa  there 
are  but  four  vehicles,  and  these  are  two-wheel  carts. 
There  are  no  agricultural  implements,  and  no  farms. 
Wealth  is  calculated  by  the  number  of  cocoanut  trees 
a  man  owns.  The  trees  are  worth  $5  each,  and  the 
nuts  from  each  tree  average  about  $1  per  year  hi  value. 
The  waters  surrounding  the  islands  produce  many  food 
fish,  but  the  natives  do  not  much  care  for  them.  There 
are  a  good  many  pigs  of  an  inferior  breed,  and  some 
of  these  run  wild,  and  are  hunted  with  dogs.  The  only 
other  game  in  the  island  are  wild  pigeons,  though  there 
is  talk  that  wild  cattle  may  be  found  on  Tutuila  island, 
a  story  Judge  Dwyer  does  not  believe.  Every  little 
while  the  natives  hunt  the  wild  cattle,  but  never  find 
them.  Sugar-cane  is  grown  hi  Samoa,  but  is  used  for 
no  other  purpose  than  to  thatch  the  queer  circular 
houses  of  the  natives.  ...  A  village  chief  is 
simply  the  village  mayor,  and  is  elected  annually. 
Occasionally  the  elections  are  very  exciting,  and  fraud 
freely  resorted  to,  but  hi  the  main  the  Samoans  are  a 


26  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

peaceful  people,  and  fairly  honest.  .  .  .  It  is  im- 
possible to  get  away  from  taxes,  and  the  Samoan  head 
of  a  family  pays  270  pounds  of  copra  as  his  annual  con- 
tribution to  the  state.  This  is  all  used  to  pay  local 
chiefs,  and  none  of  it  goes  to  the  United  States.  .  .  . 
Communism  is  practiced  by  the  people,  and  when  a 
man  earns  $20  a  month  working  as  a  servant  in  an  Amer- 
ican household,  he  is  compelled  to  divide  with  mem- 
bers of  his  family,  but  the  industrious  Samoans  are 
tiring  of  this  plan,  and  resort  to  all  sorts  of  subterfuges 
to  avoid  dividing  their  wages.  .  .  .  Pago  Pago  is 
a  beautiful  place  for  naval  lieutenants  to  take  their 
brides,  and  it  was  delightful  to  spend  five  hours  in  the 
American  colony  there,  but  we  have  no  more  use  for 
it  than  we  have  for  Guam,  or  the  Philippines.  The 
supplies  come  from  San  Francisco,  and  cost  a  great 
deal ;  coal  costs  $13  a  ton  for  the  cruises  of  the  "  Prince- 
ton," but  our  government  does  not  receive  ten  cents 
a  day  income  from  American  Samoa.  In  our  career 
of  conquest  in  Samoa,  we  have  not  robbed  the  Samoans ; 
they  have  robbed  us. 

$j  $  $ 

At  breakfast-time  on  the  morning  of  December  31, 
we  passed  Turtle  island,  of  the  Fiji  group.  We  could 
see  smoke  ashore,  and  that  was  about  all.  The  180th 
meridian  crosses  one  of  these  islands,  and  the  captain 
says  a  native  has  a  house  on  the  line.  In  one  end  of 
his  house  the  day  of  the  week  is  Thursday,  while  in  the 
other  end  it  is  Friday. 

$  t$j  $ 

Most  of  the  passengers  are  English.  Among  the 
Americans  is  a  Chicago  doctor  named  Beeson,  who 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.  27 

greatly  interests  me.  Dr.  Beeson  has  a  son  who  is 
thirty  years  old,  and  when  the  father  is  away  the  son 
attends  to  his  business,  as  the  son  is  also  a  doctor. 
When  the  father  returns,  the  son  will  take  a  trip. 
Harry  Clay  Blaney  and  wife,  who  toured  the  country 
for  years  in  a  play  called  "Across  the  Pacific,"  are  also 
interesting  passengers.  Mr.  Blaney  and  his  brother 
Charles  operate  theatres  in  New  York,  Philadelphia, 
Brooklyn,  Jersey  City,  and  hi  other  cities,  in  addition 
to  owning  several  road  shows.  Mrs.  Blaney  is  an 
actress,  but  is  very  domestic,  and  spends  most  of  her 
tune  sitting  on  deck  doing  fancy  work. 


SUNDAY,  JANUARY  5. — We  celebrated  our  approach 
to  Sydney,  Australia,  by  running  into  a  storm.  I  have 
never  seen  worse  weather  at  sea.  Heavy  seas  con- 
tinually broke  over  the  prow,  and  at  breakfast  only 
one  woman  appeared  in  the  dining-room.  It  will  sur- 
prise you  to  learn  that  this  lone  woman  was  Adelaide, 
the  farmer's  daughter.  The  gentlemen  gave  her  quite 
a  reception,  but  I  wasn't  there  to  witness  it :  I  was  sick 
in  bed.  Women  are  very  much  more  subject  to  sea- 
sickness than  men,  as  a  rule.  .  .  .  The  night  be- 
fore the  storm,  we  had  another  impromptu  dance,  and 
Adelaide,  who  never  danced  in  her  life,  danced  the 
lancers  with  Judge  Dwyer,  chief  judge  of  American 
Samoa.  There  were  two  sets,  and  a  good-natured 
doctor  from  London  called  the  figures  in  an  amusing 
way.  I  hear  it  frequently  remarked  that  we  have  a 
very  agreeable  passenger  list;  not  a  disagreeable  per- 


28  TRAVEL  LETTERS   PROM 

son  on  the  list.  At  the  captain's  dinner  the  captain 
made  another  speech,  in  which  he  threw  us  gorgeous 
bouquets. 


MONDAY,  JANUARY  6. — The  captain  said  we  should 
see  land  on  the  morning  of  the  6th,  at  8  o'clock.  At 
almost  exactly  that  hour,  land  appeared  off  the  star- 
board beam  (I  take  this  to  mean  off  to  the  right). 
When  land  first  appears  at  sea,  it  is  very  faint,  and  is 
only  distinguished  from  clouds  with  difficulty.  At 
10  A.  M.  we  were  in  plain  sight  of  Sydney's  famous  har- 
bor, and  saw  other  ships  entering  ahead  of  us.  A  half 
an  hour  later,  we  took  on  a  pilot,  and  at  11  o'clock  we 
stopped  at  quarantine  to  wait  for  a  doctor.  When  this 
official  came,  we  found  him  a  huge  man  who  would 
create  a  sensation  in  a  museum.  After  the  usual  in- 
spection, the  "Sonoma"  steamed  toward  her  dock, 
eight  miles  away,  and  we  had  an  opportunity  to  see  the 
harbor.  ...  In  reading,  you  are  almost  constantly 
in  sight  of  the  statement  that  Sydney  has  the  finest 
harbor  in  the  world,  and,  after  you  have  seen  it,  you 
are  disposed  to  admit  the  truth  of  the  statement. 
After  passing  in  from  the  sea,  a  ship  travels  eight  or 
ten  miles  to  the  city  docks,  and  the  course  winds  around 
through  hills  almost  large  enough  to  be  called  moun- 
tains. On  either  side  are  bays,  and  everywhere  on 
top  of  the  hills  you  see  houses  with  red  tile  roofs.  Syd- 
ney is  a  city  of  more  than  seven  hundred  thousand, 
and  has  doubled  its  population  in  the  past  twenty-five 
years.  It  is  only  a  question  of  a  few  years  until  Syd- 
ney has  a  million  population,  and  is  destined  to  be- 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.  29 

come  one  of  the  great  cities  of  the  world.  Its  houses 
are  nearly  all  built  of  a  native  stone  of  yellow  cast. 
Through  this  wonderful  harbor  we  steamed  slowly,  and 
finally  landed  at  noon,  as  the  captain  said  we  would. 


TUESDAY,  JANUARY  7. — This  morning  we  employed 
a  messenger  boy  to  show  us  around  Sydney.  The  boy 
is  fourteen  years  old,  and  was  educated  in  English 
schools.  He  talks  no  other  language  than  English, 
but  we  could  not  understand  half  he  said :  there  is  this 
marked  difference  in  American  and  English  pronunci- 
ation. Sydney  is  an  English  city,  and  its  signs  are  in 
English,  but  we  do  not  understand  ma.iy  of  them. 
Australia  is  not  only  an  English  colony,  but  the  people 
of  its  larger  towns  have  a  dialect  of  their  own.  Syd- 
ney is  a  fine  city,  but  looks  more  like  Manchester  or 
Liverpool  than  it  looks  like  London.  There  are  no 
sky-scrapers  here,  in  the  American  sense;  one  of  the 
Sydney  newspapers  wanted  to  build  a  sky-scraper, 
and  occupy  it  as  an  office,  but  Parliament  would  not 
permit  it.  Everywhere  you  see  American  goods,  and 
signs  calling  attention  to  them,  and  Bud  Atkinson's 
American  Wild  West  is  giving  exhibitions  daily  in  one 
of  the  parks.  It  seemed  queer  to  me  that  an  exhibition 
of  this  character  should  be  granted  permission  to  ex- 
hibit in  one  of  the  parks ;  imagine  an  Australian  Wild 
West  in  Central  Park  in  New  York.  And  I  do  not  re- 
call Bud  Atkinson  as  a  noted  American  in  the  Wild 
West  line.  This  show  came  over  a  month  ago,  in  the 
ship  ahead  of  ours.  I  should  say  a  jump  of  three  weeks 


30  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

is  a  tolerably  big  one.  This  is  the  summer  season  here, 
and  the  show  will  return  to  the  United  States  in  April. 
.  .  .  In  the  fruit  stoies  in  Sydney  you  see  straw- 
berries, cantaloupes,  peaches,  green  corn,  tomatoes, 
etc.  At  home  you  hear  a  good  deal  about  low  prices 
in  Australia.  I  only  know  I  paid  fifty  cents  each  for 
cantaloupes,  which  are  known  as  Rock  Melons  here, 
but  they  are  particularly  large  and  fine.  Strawberries 
were  fifty  cents  a  quart,  but  they  were  extra  good.  I 
am  told  that  the  people  here  do  not  care  much  for  Rock 
Melons.  The  melons  we  bought  we  carried  to  a  restau- 
rant, and  the  woman  who  served  them  had  never  tasted 
melons,  and  thought  we  had  queer  taste.  ...  A 
thing  that  attracted  our  attention  in  Sydney  was  an 
unusually  large  number  of  young  women.  At  one  of 
the  bathing  beaches  I  saw  a  party  of  twelve,  and  nine 
of  them  were  young  women.  We  entered  Sydney  har- 
bor early  Monday  morning,  and  the  bathing-beaches 
were  already  crowded ;  there  seems  to  be  more  merry- 
making here  than  in  American  cities.  On  Monday 
and  Tuesday  the  parks  were  crowded,  as  were  the  bath- 
ing-beaches. And  the  parks  here  are  wonderfully  fine, 
and  the  zoological  garden  I  visited  was  the  best  I  have 
ever  seen.  The  impudent  English  sparrows  may  be 
seen  here  in  great  numbers,  arid  in  the  parks  they  enter 
the  cages  of  rare  birds  and  rob  them  of-  their  feed. 
.  .  .  Adelaide  is  very  polite,  but  she  says  the  people 
here  look  funny  to  her ;  that  it  is  a  constant  source  of 
amusement  to  her  to  walk  the  streets  and  see  the  people. 
She  says  the  women  wear  afternoon  dresses  in  the  morn- 
ing, on  the  street.  Along  the  docks  this  morning,  we 
came  upon  a  big  crowd  witnessing  the  departure  of  a 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.  31 

ship.  Half  the  women  wore  fancy  white  dresses,  and 
big  picture  hats.  .  .  .  The  residences  here  do  not 
seem  to  be  numbered,  but  each  has  a  name ;  a  flat  with 
four  occupants  will  have  four  names,  and  a  double 
house  will  have  two.  Out  in  the  suburbs,  little  houses 
of  two  and  three  rooms  will  have  tremendously  big 
names.  And  we  passed  through  miles  of  suburbs 
where  every  house  seemed  to  be  new :  there  is  no  doubt 
that  Sydney  is  growing  rapidly.  .  .  .  An  attraction 
here  at  one  of  the  theatres  is  "Faust,"  of  which  Amer- 
ica tired  years  ago.  " Marguerite"  is  exploited  after 
the  fashion  of  "Little  Eva"  in  an  "Uncle  Tom"  show, 
and  somehow  it  looks  ridiculous.  "Faust"  is  a  ridicu- 
lous play,  so  far  as  that  goes,  and  the  story  of  "Mar- 
guerite" foolish.  One  of  the  bills  now  being  shown  in 
Sydney  represents  "Marguerite"  being  transported 
alive  into  heaven,  by  angels,  in  spite  of  the  devil,  who 
is  flying  along  with  the  angels,  and  snorting  fire.  .  .  . 
We  hear  in  the  United  States  that  there  are  no  labor 
troubles  in  Australia;  that  everything  is  settled  by 
arbitration.  But  I  see  much  more  about  labor  troubles 
hi  the  Sydney  papers  than  I  ever  see  in  the  papers  of 
America.  One  of  the  unions  now  making  trouble  is 
that  of  the  Rabbit  Trappers.  You  may  think  I  made 
that  up,  but  I  didn't :  there  is  really  such  a  union  here, 
and  it  is  just  now  prominent  because  of  some  sort  of 
controversy.  Many  years  ago  rabbits  were  imported 
to  Australia,  to  afford  sport  for  the  people.  Conditions 
are  so  favorable  for  rabbits  here  that  they  soon  became 
a  great  pest.  Farmers  are  now  compelled  to  fence 
against  rabbits,  and  millions  of  the  animals  are  caught, 
frozen,  and  sent  to  the  London  market.  ...  At 


32  TRAVEL  LETTERS   FROM 

least  one  of  the  leading  newspapers  here,  The  Morning 
Telegraph,  denounces  unionism,  saying  it  was  originally 
in  the  interest  of  workingmen,  but  lately  it  has  become 
political  despotism,  and  union  labor  leaders  political 
adventurers.  "Capital,"  said  The  Telegraph,  in  an 
editorial  this  morning,  "will  leave  Australia,  and  go 
where  labor  is  not  a  political  despot."  I  do  not  know 
of  a  leading  paper  in  the  United  States  that  would  care 
to  print  a  similar  editorial.  Plenty  of  such  editorials 
are  printed  in  the  United  States,  but  in  trade  papers, 
and  not  in  leading  daily  newspapers. 


WEDNESDAY,  JANUARY  8. — We  sailed  at  noon  today 
for  Auckland,  New  Zealand,  on  the  ship  "Maheno." 
It  is  about  the  size  of  the  "Sonoma;"  six  thousand 
tons.  .  .  .  We  are  accomplishing  so  much  by  law 
now  that  I  suggest  the  adoption  of  a  law  providing  that 
no  ship  of  less  than  twelve  thousand  tons  be  permitted 
to  carry  passengers ;  a  six-thousand-ton  ship  is  too  small. 
Adelaide  drew  seat  No.  13  at  the  table,  but  I  did  worse 
than  that:  I  drew  two  men  in  my  room.  I  resent 
two  men  in  my  room  as  I  do  going  to  jail,  but  resent- 
ment did  me  no  good ;  the  ship  is  crowded,  and  I  was 
compelled  to  stand  it.  But  what  do.  you  think  hap- 
pened to  Adelaide,  who  occupies  seat  No.  13  at  the 
table?  She  has  a  room  to  herself.  .  .  .  One  of 
the  men  in  my  room  is  a  New-Yorker  named  Bond, 
an  importer  who  has  a  branch  house  in  Sydney.  The 
man  with  him  is  one  of  his  traveling  salesmen.  Mr. 
Bond  is  an  old  traveler,  and  has  made  this  trip  many 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.  33 

times.  He  hates  the  "Maheno,"  and  predicts  a  dis- 
agreeable experience.  He  says  the  "Maheno"  can 
kick  up  a  rough  sea  when  the  weather  is  fine,  and  that 
there  is  nothing  commendable  about  the  boat  except 
that  it  usually  gets  across  in  a  little  less  than  four  days. 
.  .  .  You  can  never  know  what  it  means  to  be 
crowded  until  you  have  been  one  of  three  in  a  steam- 
ship stateroom.  It  was  a  disagreeable  experience,  get- 
ting to  bed,  which  we  attempted  at  8 :  30,  as  the  weather 
was  rough.  After  I  was  in  bed  with  my  two  room- 
mates, I  began  thinking :  "  Suppose  one  of  them  should 
snore!"  I  am  a  bad  sleeper  at  best,  and  the  thought 
of  a  snoring  man  in  my  room  all  night  set  my  nerves 
on  edge.  .  .  .  The  opportunity  was  too  good  to  be 
neglected.  Mr.  Bond  and  his  friend  talked  business 
awhile,  another  thing  I  am  not  accustomed  to  hi  my 
sleeping-room,  and  then  Mr.  Bond  began  snoring.  For 
years,  people  around  me  have  paid  attention  to  my 
nerves,  because  I  am  a  bad  sleeper,  and  I  resented  this 
snoring  as  a  spoilt  child  does  when  whipped  by  a  neigh- 
bor. I  stood  it  until  midnight,  and  then  I  crawled  out 
of  bed,  found  a  bath-robe  and  slippers,  and  spent  the 
night  on  a  sofa  in  the  music-room. 


THURSDAY,  JANUARY  9. — A  ship  is  no  place  for  an 
early  riser.  A  ship  bed  becomes  unbearable  to  me  by 
5  A.  M.,  and  half  an  hour  later  I  am  on  deck.  I  can't 
sit  in  the  music-room  or  smoking-room,  because  the 
stewards  are  cleaning  up,  and  when  I  walk  the  decks 
I  am  in  the  way  of  sailors  who  are  washing  them  with 


34  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

hose.  In  addition,  the  early  riser  never  has  his  shoes 
shined,  and  gets  no  early  breakfast  in  bed.  On  a  ship, 
the  servants  will  not  respect  you  if  you  do  anything  for 
yourself.  .  .  .  The  second  passenger  to  appear  on 
deck  was  a  woman;  possibly  she  had  a  snorer  in  her 
room,  too.  Much  to  my  surprise,  the  woman  calmly 
proceeded,  after  seating  herself  hi  a  deck  chair,  to  put 
on  her  stockings.  They  say  women  always  sit  on  the 
floor  when  they  put  on  their  stockings,  but  this  woman 
didn't.  .  .  .  Bare  legs  are  quite  common  here. 
The  fourteen-year-old  messenger  boy  who  showed  us 
about  ha  Sydney  wore  stockings  only  a  few  inches  long, 
and  above  them  his  legs  were  bare  to  his  knees.  This 
is  the  rule  with  boys  and  girls,  and  their  legs  are  sun- 
burned and  cracked,  and  often  covered  with  pimples. 
.  .  .  So  far  as  I  know,  all  the  passengers  on  the 
"Maheno"  are  Australians  or  New-Zealanders,  except 
ourselves  and  Mr.  Bond,  and  we  expect  him  to  quit 
speaking  to  us  because  I  do  not  enjoy  his  snoring. 
At  home  I  have  always  had  members  of  my  family 
bluffed  because  of  my  nervousness,  but  here  everyone 
seems  to  think  it  perfectly  absurd  that  snoring  should 
disturb  me.  ...  I  hear  the  passengers  talking 
about  "the  bush."  In  our  country  we  call  it  the 
"short-grass  country;"  both  mean  the  frontier.  I 
have  always  been  interested  in  Australia  because  Abel 
Magwitch  made  his  money  there.  Charles  Dickens 
created  this  man  out  of  his  fancy,  but  no  character  was 
ever  more  real  to  me.  There  is  something  about  the 
old  fellow  that  appeals  to  me  as  Falstaff  or  Macbeth 
never  did,  and  to  my  mind  "Great  Expectations"  is 
the  greatest  book  ever  written.  Abel  Magwitch  made 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.  35 

his  money  in  Australia  in  sheep,  and  at  the  Sydney 
hotels  you  see  sheep  farmers  from  "the  bush"  who  are 
timidly  spending  their  money.  Australia  is  an  ideal 
sheep  country,  and  fortunes  are  easily  made,  until  there 
is  a  drouth.  Then  there  is  neither  water  nor  grass 
for  the  animals,  and  they  die  off  in  great  numbers.  The 
last  drouth  occurred  seven  years  ago,  and  thousands  of 
sheep  sold  at  a  shilling  a  head.  Many  of  those  who 
bought  sheep  at  that  price,  lost  them  all,  and  became 
bankrupt.  But  sheep  are  prolific,  and  hi  two  or  three 
years  after  the  drouth  they  seemed  to  be  as  numerous 
as  ever.  It  is  said  the  Australians  make  money  easily, 
and  are  much  like  Americans.  The  New-Zealanders 
are  much  like  the  Australians,  although  the  distance 
from  Sydney  to  Auckland  is  thirteen  hundred  miles. 
.  .  .  Abel  Magwitch  was  sent  to  Australia  as  a  con- 
vict from  England,  as  Australia  was  formerly  a  penal 
colony,  but  that  was  many  years  ago;  Australia  is 
now  one  of  the  most  prosperous  countries  hi  the  world, 
and  it  has  been  of  great  use  to  mankind  because  it  has 
tried  so  many  experiments  hi  trying  to  make  the  com- 
mon lot  easier.  Many  of  the  advanced  political  notions 
hi  the  United  States  came  from  Australia  and  New 
Zealand.  The  per-capita  wealth  is  higher  in  those 
countries  than  in  any  other;  there  is  more  wealth  hi 
other  countries,  but  it  is  not  so  evenly  distributed 
among  the  people  as  hi  Australia  and  New  Zealand. 
The  government  owns  most  of  the  public  utilities,  and 
no  one  can  help  remarking  the  fine  system  of  street 
railway  in  Sydney.  For  short  distances  the  fare  is 
two  cents,  and  the  fare  increases  after  passing  certain 
limits.  I  am  told  that  in  some  lines  of  business  there 


36  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

is  a  holiday  at  Christmas  here,  lasting  two  weeks. 
There  is  no  severely  cold  weather,  and  the  people 
are  not  compelled  to  spend  a  great  deal  for  fuel.  Wages 
are  not  as  high  as  with  us,  but  living  is  cheaper.  I  had 
heard  so  much  of  the  low  cost  of  beef  hi  Australia  that 
I  inquired  the  price  at  several  markets.  The  best  cuts 
sold  at  twenty  cents  per  pound :  altogether,  meat  is 
cheaper  than  hi  the  United  States,  but  the  difference 
is  not  so  great  as  I  expected  it  to  be.  ...  Every- 
thing indicates  that  the  Australians  are  good  people,  . 
and  hospitable,  enterprising,  and  intelligent;  I  have 
only  admiration  for  them,  until  they  begin  to  talk. 
Then  their  pronunciation  is  a  reproach  to  me.  I  have 
always  called  it  Austraylia;  they  call  it  Austrylia. 
"Well,  old  chap,"  I  heard  a  man  say  to  a  friend  in 
Sydney,  on  parting,  "tyke  care  of  yourself!"  .  .  . 
There  is  a  woman  on  this  ship  with  three  little  children. 
To  look  at  her,  she  seems  like  any  other  worthy  woman : 
devoted,  unselfish,  kind,  polite,  and  always  busy. 
But  when  you  hear  her  talk,  it  is  different  from  any- 
thing you  ever  heard.  There  are  two  little  girls  on 
board,  and  they  are  very  kind  to  the  mother  with  three 
children.  It  is  very  nice  to  see  them  caring  for  the 
baby,  and  running  errands  for  the  tired  mother,  but 
as  soon  as  they  begin  to  talk  they  do  not  seem  so  much 
like  little  girls  you  have  known.  "I  was  a  bit  groggy 
meself  yesterday,"  I  heard  one  of  them  say  to  the 
mother.  She  meant  that  she  was  seasick.  .  .  . 
The  English  themselves  do  not  agree  on  pronunciations ; 
Cambridge  University  authorizes  one  pronunciation 
of  many  words,  and  Oxford  another.  I  can  understand 
how  dialects  originate  with  people  speaking  the  same 


o         o 

GO          02 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.     37 

language,  and  who  do  not  associate  much  with  each 
other  except  locally,  but  the  English  and  American  see 
enough  of  each  other  to  get  together  in  pronunciation. 


FRIDAY,  JANUARY  10. — Last  night  I  laid  my  case  be- 
fore the  chief  steward,  and  he  said  he  would  fix  me  up ; 
that  he  would  take  me  out  of  27,  where  Mr.  Bond  de- 
votes the  nights  to  snoring,  and  put  me  in  No.  7,  with 
Mr.  Martin.  I  went  to  bed  in  No.  7,  complimenting 
the  chief  steward  for  his  disposition  to  please  the  pas- 
sengers, but  in  ten  minutes  Mr.  Martin  began  snoring, 
and  I  spent  the  night  trying  to  decide  if  his  snore  was 
not  rather  more  rasping  than  that  of  Mr.  Bond.  At  alate 
hour  I  dressed  and  retreated  again  to  a  sofa  in  the  music- 
room.  But  I  have  not  lost  my  temper;  I  am  rather 
disposed,  on  the  contrary,  to  laugh  at  myself  for  spend- 
ing a  large  amount  of  money  in  an  attempt  to  have  a 
"good  time."  .  .  .  The  sea  has  been  smooth  today 
and  we  are  all  much  more  comfortable,  although  I  do 
not  believe  anyone  is  getting  his  money's  worth.  About 
the  only  excitement  on  board  is  the  fact  that  a  flock  of 
albatross  are  following  us.  I  have  always  understood 
that  albatross  are  rather  scarce  at  sea,  but  certainly 
twenty  are  hi  sight  as  I  write  this.  They  often  fly 
within  twenty  feet  of  the  ship,  and  we  have  opportunity 
to  examine  them  carefully.  They  follow  the  ship  for 
hours  without  moving  a  wing;  they  seem  to  fly  by 
taking  advantage  of  the  wind.  .  .  .  We  saw  sev- 
eral whales  today,  and  the  captain,  at  whose  table  we  sit, 
says  he  once  ran  into  one,  and  was  compelled  to  back 
out  of  it. 


38  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

SATURDAY,  JANUARY  11. — A  story  one  always  hears 
on  approaching  New  Zealand :  In  a  strait  near  the  coast 
is  a  fish  known  as  "Pilot  Jack,"  which  escorts  every 
ship  through,  except  one.  Some  years  ago  a  passenger 
on  a  certain  ship  fired  at  the  fish,  and  wounded  it. 
The  fish  disappeared  for  several  months,  but  finally 
it  appeared  again,  and  resumed  its  old  habits  of  pilot- 
ing ships  through  the  strait ;  but  it  never  shows  itself 
when  the  ship  appears  from  the  deck  of  which  it  was 
fired  upon.  The  shooting  incident  caused  the  New 
Zealand  Parliament  to  pass  an  act  protecting  "Pilot 
Jack."  The  fish  is  about  twenty  feet  long,  and  photo- 
graphs showing  it  swimming  ahead  of  ships  are  common. 
These  photographs,  it  seems  to  me,  are  faked,  and  made 
specially  to  sell  to  tourists.  Seamen  do  not  know  why 
"Pilot  Jack"  appears  whenever  a  ship  invades  his 
territory,  but  certain  it  is  that  he  does  appear,  and  swims 
ahead  of  the  ship  several  miles.  The  captain  of  the 
"Maheno"  says  it  is  possible  "Pilot  Jack"  likes  to 
rub  his  back  on  the  bottom  of  ships,  and  thus  get  rid 
of  certain  annoying  parasites.  Another  theory  is  that 
the  fish  simply  plays  about  the  ships,  which  is  not  im- 
probable ;  I  have  myself  seen  dolphins  play  in  the  waves 
thrown  up  by  the  prow  of  a  ship,  and  keep  it  up  several 
minutes  at  a  time.  .  .  .  Last  night  I  sent  a  wireless 
message  to  the  Grand  Hotel  at  Auckland,  engaging 
accommodations  on  my  arrival  there.  I  was  compelled 
to  pay  $2  for  the  service,  and  sign  an  agreement  that  I 
would  not  ask  recovery  hi  case  the  message  was  not 
delivered.  .  .  .  No  one  seems  to  know  much  about 
the  albatross  which  are  following  us.  A  sailor  told  me 
that  if  an  albatross  should  light  on  the  water,  it  couldn't 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.  39 

get  up  again.  Ten  minutes  later,  I  saw  twenty  of  them 
alight  on  the  water,  apparently  fight  over  something 
thrown  from  the  ship,  and  then  get  up  again.  The 
sailors  once  caught  an  albatross,  and  concluded  to  take 
it  to  the  zoological  garden  at  Sydney,  but  it  became 
seasick,  and  was  such  a  nuisance  that  they  knocked  it 
in  the  head  and  threw  it  overboard.  A  passenger  once 
jumped  from  the  "Sonoma,"  with  a  view  of  committing 
suicide.  A  number  of  albatross  were  following  the 
ship  and  they  picked  the  man's  eyes  out  before  a  boat 
could  reach  him.  Although  very  beautiful  and  grace- 
ful, the  bird  is  said  to  be  a  disgusting  vulture.  Where 
or  how  it  lives  no  one  seems  to  know ;  but  it  is  certain 
that  it  will  follow  a  ship  night  and  day  from  Wellington 
to  Cape  Horn,  a  trip  of  three  weeks.  It  is  not  seen 
when  land  is  in  sight ;  it  seems  to  sail  about  the  lonely 
ocean  as  easily  as  a  zephyr,  and  the  stronger  the  head- 
wind, the  easier  it  sails  against  it.  ...  There  is  a 
peculiar  character  on  board  at  whom  everyone  laughs. 
For  awhile  I  feared  he  might  be  a  fool  American,  but 
he  turned  out  to  be  a  New  Zealand  school  teacher. 
He  wears  a  tall  hat  and  clerical  clothes,  and  everyone 
supposed  for  a  time  that  he  was  a  missionary.  One 
day  he  went  after  his  music,  and  began  singing  hi  the 
ladies'  parlor.  He  cannot  sing,  and  cannot  play  the 
piano,  although  he  attempts  both.  A  crowd  soon 
gathered,  and  vigorously  applauded  when  he  con- 
cluded "The  Lost  Chord."  The  howling  of  a  dog,  ac- 
companied by  a  child  banging  on  a  piano,  would  not 
have  been  worse,  and  it  was  so  ridiculous  that  the  man 
was  asked  to  sing  again.  He  readily  consented,  and 
attempted  a  tenor  aria  from  "The  Messiah."  The 


40  TRAVEL  LETTERS   FROM 

passengers  now  call  the  man  "the  professor,"  and  two 
or  three  tunes  a  day  he  is  asked  to  sing.  He  always 
complies  promptly.  There  are  half  a  dozen  excellent 
musicians  on  board,  and  when  they  sing  or  play,  "the 
professor  "  is  plainly  bored.  He  seems  more  like  a  char- 
acter from  a  play  or  book  than  a  real  man,  and  is  mild 
and  inoffensive.  I  talked  awhile  with  him  today,  and 
found  him  an  educated  man,  and  apparently  quite 
intelligent,  but  he  is  not  able  to  understand  that  he 
cannot  sing,  or  play  the  piano ;  he  cannot  realize  that 
all  the  passengers  are  making  fun  of  him.  I  suppose 
all  of  us  are  made  fun  of  when  we  do  not  know  it,  but 
the  case  of  "the  professor"  is  more  than  usually  glar- 
ing. A  concert  is  being  arranged  for  tonight,  as  this 
is  the  last  day  of  the  voyage,  and  "the  professor"  has 
been  put  on  the  programme,  to  avoid  hurting  his  feel- 
ings. Last  night  he  was  the  only  man  on  board  who 
dressed  for  dinner;  he  put  on  a  swallow-tailed  coat 
much  too  long  for  him,  and  looked  odd  in  other  par- 
ticulars. And  after  all  the  trouble  he  went  to,  in  dress- 
ing for  dinner,  he  was  compelled  to  dine  at  the  second 
sitting.  He  is  a  small  man,  with  smooth,  white  face, 
and  wears  his  dark  hair  quite  long.  The  passengers 
are  learning  to  like  him,  for  he  is  evidently  a  gentleman, 
but  none  of  us  can  understand  why  the  man  so  readily 
consents  to  make  a  fool  of  himself.  Perhaps  the  other 
passengers  make  fools  of  themselves,  too,  and  are  as 
unconscious  of  it  as  "the  professor."  When  not  play- 
ing or  singing,  he  carries  an  algebra  about,  and  works 
problems.  He  has  two  pairs  of  spectacles,  and  is 
constantly  changing  them,  and  forgetting  in  which 
pocket  he  placed  the  pair  he  wishes  to  use  next.  .  .  . 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.     41 

I  am  very  proud  of  the  men  on  this  ship,  they  are  so 
modest  and  well-behaved.  I  hear  no  swearing,  or  rude 
talk,  and  there  is  almost  no  drinking  at  table  or  in  the 
smoking-room.  The  three  men  I  have  roomed  with 
are  quiet,  and  genteel,  and  I  should  admire  them  very 
much  did  they  not  snore.  I  am  certain  Mr.  Martin 
was  annoyed  because  I  was  put  in  with  him,  but  he 
is  so  considerate  of  me  that  I  can  almost  forgive  his 
bad  habit.  I  think  he  knows  he  snores,  and  when  I 
hear  him  threshing  about  in  his  bed,  I  almost  conclude 
he  is  keeping  awake  in  order  that  he  may  not  annoy 
me.  He  is  an  elderly  man,  and  frequently  gets  up  in 
the  night,  but  he  does  it  so  quietly  that  I  rarely  hear 
him.  ...  A  man  I  supposed  to  be  an  Episcopal 
rector  turns  out  to  be  a  Presbyterian  preacher  named 
Thompson.  He  is  an  Englishman,  but  was  educated 
at  Yale,  and  now  has  a  charge  in  a  small  town  in  New 
Zealand.  I  walk  the  decks  with  him  a  good  deal. 
He  says  he  has  been  taking  a  vacation,  and  that,  dur- 
ing his  idleness,  he  has  been  thinking  a  great  deal. 

"Many  times,"  he  said,  "I  asked  myself  the  ques- 
tion :  '  In  view  of  modernism,  what  is  the  best  thing 
to  do  for  my  people?'  and  I  always  came  to  the  con- 
clusion that  there  is  nothing  better  for  any  of  us  than 
fairness,  politeness,  temperance,  and  industry ;  I  could 
come  to  no  other  conclusion  than  that  the  oldest  and 
simplest  doctrine  is  the  best." 

Another  passenger  is  a  little  man  who  rides  running 
horses  in  races.  The  Australians  are  very  fond  of 
racing,  and  the  favorite  riders  are  noted  and  prosper- 
ous men.  All  of  them  are  small ;  this  man  has  a  wife 
almost  twice  his  size.  Some  of  them  become  as  noted 


42  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

as  Nat  Goodwin,  the  actor,  and  marry  as  often.  A 
little  intelligence  and  coolness  at  a  critical  moment 
will  often  win  a  race,  and  the  noted  jockeys  are  usually 
men  of  intelligence.  The  man  showed  me  a  number 
of  scars,  the  result  of  accidents.  In  racing  in  Austra- 
lia, the  horses  jump  hurdles,  and  often  fall.  ...  At 
3  o'clock  this  afternoon  we  passed  the  "Three  Kings," 
barren  islands  without  a  light,  which  have  caused  many 
shipwrecks.  An  hour  later  we  sighted  the  coast  of 
New  Zealand,  and  followed  it  throughout  the  night. 
.  .  .  This  evening  we  had  a  concert  in  the  music- 
room,  lasting  two  hours.  This  is  a  great  country  for 
amateur  singing ;  every  traveler  seems  to  carry  music, 
and  on  the  slightest  provocation  will  go  to  his  room 
and  get  it.  In  addition  to  singing  and  piano-playing, 
we  had  four  recitations;  the  recitation  habit  seems 
respectable  here.  ...  A  New  York  traveling- 
man  says  the  fashions  in  New  Zealand  and  Australia 
are  always  a  year  or  two  behind  New  York,  and  that 
goods  going  out  of  style  in  the  United  States  are  just 
coming  in  here.  Goods  that  are  unsalable  in  New 
York,  because  they  are  out  of  fashion,  may  be  picked 
up  at  low  prices,  and  sold  here  at  a  good  profit,  accord- 
ing to  the  New  York  traveling-man,  who  has  been 
visiting  Australia  and  New  Zealand  for  fifteen  years. 


SUNDAY,  JANUARY  12. — At  daylight  this  morning  we 
passed  into  a  land-locked  gulf,  and  continued  in  it  all 
the  way  to  Auckland.  At  8  o'clock,  while  at  breakfast, 
the  suburbs  of  Auckland  began  to  appear,  but  we  did 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.  43 

not  get  through  the  custom-house  and  go  ashore  until 
two  hours  later.  We  hurried  to  the  Grand  Hotel,  where 
we  had  ordered  rooms  by  wireless,  paying  two  dollars 
for  the  service.  The  manager  said  he  had  not  received 
the  message,  therefore  had  not  reserved  the  rooms. 
While  he  was  talking,  he  excused  himself  to  attend  to  a 
telephone  call.  On  his  return,  he  said  our  wireless 
message  had  just  been  telephoned  him  from  the  ship. 
That  is  the  service  you  get  from  the  much-advertised 
wireless.  Later  I  met  an  officer  of  the  ship  on  the 
street,  and  he  said  I  was  entitled  to  a  return  of  my 
money,  but  I  will  never  get  it ;  on  paying  for  the  serv- 
ice two  days  ago,  I  was  compelled  to  sign  an  agreement 
not  to  ask  for  my  money  back  in  case  no  service  was 
rendered.  .  .  .  The  manager  of  the  Grand  rec- 
ommended the  Royal,  which  is  under  the  same  manage- 
ment. At  the  Royal  we  found  a  woman  clerk  so  polite 
that  we  liked  the  place  at  once.  When  she  called  a 
boy  to  show  us  our  rooms,  she  called  him  "Buttons." 
This  young  man  took  us  up  in  a  primitive  elevator, 
which  stuck,  and  the  servants  were  compelled  to  pull 
us  out.  When  we  finally  reached  our  rooms,  we  liked 
them,  and  probably  we  are  as  well  off  here  as  we  would 
have  been  at  the  Grand.  .  .  .  All  the  hotels  in 
Auckland,  with  five  unimportant  exceptions,  are  owned 
by  a  Jew  named  Ernest  Davis.  He  owns  hotels  in 
other  places,  a  id  they  are  all  compelled  to  sell  Hancock 
beer,  as  Davis  also  owns  the  Hancock  brewery.  One 
hears  a  good  deal  here  about  the  five  free  hotels  of 
Auckland.  Freedom  in  this  case  means  freedom  to 
sell  any  beer  the  manager  chooses  to  buy.  In  the 
United  States,  breweries  own  saloons,  but  I  have  never 


44  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

before  heard  of  breweries  owning  hotels.  .  .  .  The 
Royal  is  very  modest  in  its  charges ;  we  pay  ten  shil- 
lings and  sixpence  per  day  each  for  accommodations. 
This  means  $2.62  a  day  for  room,  three  regular  meals, 
early  morning  tea,  and  supper  at  10  p.  M.  And  the 
hotel  is  really  good ;  I  do  not  care  for  anything  better, 
although  the  rooms  are  old-fashioned,  and  the  elevator 
does  not  work  half  the  time.  When  you  want  any- 
thing, you  step  into  the  hall  and  push  a  button  marked 
Maid's  Bell.  When  the  maid  appears,  you  order  hot 
water  for  shaving,  or  whatever  it  may  be  you  need. 
There  are  four  bath-rooms  near  my  room,  which  in- 
clude needle  and  douche  baths.  The  New-Zealanders 
are  fond  of  bathing,  and  there  is  never  a  lack  of  bath- 
rooms in  their  hotels.  ...  I  have  before  referred 
to  the  fact  that  women  out  here  wear  afternoon  and 
evening  dresses  in  the  morning ;  I  believe  I  would  have 
noticed  the  custom  had  not  Adelaide  called  my  atten- 
tion to  it.  When  the  ship  landed  this  morning,  a  pretty 
woman  we  admired,  dressed  in  white  satin  and  white 
kid  slippers  for  the  occasion.  .  .  .  On  our  way 
up-town,  we  passed  a  store  labeled  the  Clobbery.  The 
stock  seemed  to  consist  of  gents'  furnishing  goods. 
Perhaps  an  English  friend  can  tell  you  where  the  word 
Clobbery  comes  from;  I  never  heard  of  it  before. 
.  .  .  After  dinner,  we  walked  about  the  streets  of 
Auckland.  Adelaide  wore  what  is  known  at  home  as 
a  "Peter  Thompson  suit,"  and  it  attracted  so  much 
attention  that  I  asked  her  to  return  to  the  hotel  and 
change  it.  There  were  great  crowds  on  the  streets, 
and  they  seemed  to  think  Adelaide  was  a  member  of  a 
lady  brass  band  of  which  I  was  director.  She  took  off 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.  45 

the  "Peter  Thompson,"  and  put  on  a  gray  suit  made 
by  a  man  tailor  in  Kansas  City,  but  she  still  looked 
funny  to  the  people,  for  they  continued  to  stare  at  her. 
She  wore  a  Panama  hat  for  which  I  paid  $12  (marked 
down  from  $20),  and  I  thought  she  looked  pretty  well, 
but  she  was  a  sight  to  many  of  the  people  of  Auckland. 
.  .  .  We  heard  a  brass  band,  and  walked  that  way. 
It  turned  out  to  be  a  Salvation  Army  band  of  thirty 
men.  The  players  wore  red  coats,  and  played  like 
professionals.  The  men  and  women  in  the  procession 
were  much  more  decent-looking  than  members  of  the 
Salvation  Army  at  home.  There  were  no  guitars,  and 
no  tambourines;  the  music  was  furnished  by  an  ex- 
cellent band  of  thirty  men.  It  was  a  very  respectable 
outfit  in  every  way,  and  finally  disappeared  into  a  the- 
atre. In  Auckland,  Sunday  theatricals  are  prohibited, 
and  religious  services  are  held  in  every  theatre  twice 
on  Sunday.  In  the  early  evening,  while  on  the  streets, 
we  encountered  the  big  Salvation  Army  band  again; 
also,  the  Mission  band.  I  was  told  that  the  Mission 
was  much  like  the  Salvation  Army,  except  that  it  was 
more  modest.  The  Mission  had  a  good  band  of  twenty- 
four  men,  and  a  little  organ,  which  two  men  carried. 
After  a  selection  by  the  band,  there  was  singing,  with 
organ  accompaniment.  The  song  was  entitled,  "Just 
the  Same  Jesus,"  and  was  so  simple,  and  repeated  so 
often,  that  I  was  soon  able  to  sing  it  with  the  others. 
The  leader  asked  for  people  to  give  their  experiences, 
and  a  good  many  stepped  into  the  middle  of  the  ring, 
and  talked  briefly  and  modestly.  One  old  fellow  was 
a  particularly  good  talker,  and  said  he  had  been  a 
soldier  in  the  Civil  War  in  the  United  States,  and  trav- 


46  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

eled  all  over  the  world,  but  had  always  found  Jesus  his 
friend  in  time  of  trouble.  As  each  speaker  ceased,  the 
same  song  was  sung,  "Just  the  Same  Jesus,"  and  I 
joined  with  the  others  in  the  singing.  Presently  the 
leader  came  to  me,  and  said : 

"You  are  evidently  a  religious  man,  and  a  stranger. 
Won't  you  make  a  few  remarks?" 

I  excused  myself,  and  he  then  asked  the  band  to 
play.  .  .  .  When  we  walked  up  the  street,  in  front 
of  every  theatre  we  found  men  announcing  special 
religious  services.  In  front  of  the  theatres,  also,  were 
choirs  singing  religious  songs  as  the  people  went  in, 
precisely  as  at  a  street  fair  in  America,  a  party  of  the 
performers  will  come  out  to  the  front  to  assist  the 
ticket-seller  in  attracting  a  crowd.  The  New-Zea- 
landers  are  evidently  a  very  religious  people ;  I  have 
been  hearing  church  bells  all  day.  Everything  is 
closed  tight  except  drug  stores  and  restaurants.  .  .  . 
Both  bands  I  have  mentioned  had  only  brass  instru- 
ments ;  no  clarinets.  In  each  one  I  noticed  that  there 
were  cornet  players  who  could  play  an  octave  higher 
than  the  score,  and  thus  get  what  we  used  to  call  "the 
clarinet  tone  "  when  I  played  in  brass  bands  in  country 
towns.  I  have  never  seen  as  respectable  a  Salvation 
Army  outfit  as  I  saw  in  Auckland,  and  the  Mission 
outfit  was  still  better  looking.  ...  As  in  Austra- 
lia, January  is  like  July  or  August  in  New  Zealand; 
snow  is  unknown  about  Auckland.  All  the  vegetables 
and  fruits  are  at  their  best  here  now,  and  the  bathing- 
beaches  are  crowded.  .  .  .  On  the  "Sonoma"  I 
heard  the  steward  say  that  when  anything  came  from 
New  Zealand,  it  was  always  the  very  best.  We  have 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.  47 

found  the  butter  particularly  excellent,  and  the  mut- 
ton is  better  than  the  turkey.  .  .  .  An  American 
I  met  today  says  that  in  New  Zealand  it  is  no  uncom- 
mon thing  to  see  girls  of  fourteen  with  complete  sets 
of  false  teeth;  that  something  in  the  water  here  is 
very  hard  on  teeth. 


MONDAY,  JANUARY  13. — The  meals  and  rooms  at  the 
Hotel  Royal  are  so  good  that  we  are  almost  ashamed 
to  accept  them  at  $2.62  per  day  each.  The  taxi  sys- 
tem here  is  also  very  agreeable.  In  most  cities,  taxis 
are  disreputable  -  looking  vehicles  you  are  almost 
ashamed  to  ride  in.  Here  they  are  new  automobiles 
of  different  makes,  and  they  cannot  be  distinguished 
from  private  vehicles.  Today  we  rode  about  in  a 
Cadillac  of  1913  model  that  had  been  in  service  only 
three  weeks.  The  charge  was  $3.12  per  hour.  At 
home  the  Cadillac  costs  about  $2,000 ;  here  it  costs  a 
third  more.  The  driver  told  us  he  paid  forty  cents  a 
gallon  for  gasoline  (known  as  petrol  here) ;  we  pay 
about  eighteen  cents  a  gallon.  An  exposition  will  be 
opened  here  hi  nine  or  ten  months,  and  the  buildings 
are  being  erected  in  a  park  adjoining  the  city.  We 
went  out  hi  the  Cadillac  to  see  them,  and  it  was  very 
pleasant  to  hear  the  sound  of  the  open  muffler  again, 
for  Auckland  is  a  very  hilly  city.  One  park  we  visited 
consists  of  four  hundred  acres,  and  it  was  given  to  the 
city  by  Sir  John  Logan  Campbell.  Before  he  died, 
citizens  of  Auckland  erected  a  statue  in  his  honor, 
and  he  was  present  at  the  unveiling,  which  seemed  to 


48  TRAVEL  LETTERS   FROM 

me  rather  unusual.  From  the  top  of  a  mountain  in  this 
park,  we  could  see  across  New  Zealand.  The  country 
is  nearly  a  thousand  miles  long,  and  has  an  average 
width  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles,  but  at  Auckland 
the  width  is  only  seven  miles.  The  city  will  soon  extend 
across  the  isthmus,  and  there  is  already  talk  of  digging 
a  canal.  .  .  .  Auckland  is  accustomed  to  giving. 
One  of  the  hadsomest  and  largest  structures  here  is  a 
Y.  M.  C.  A.  building,  and  near  it  is  a  Y.  W.  C.  A. 
building.  The  campaign  in  which  the  money  was 
raised  for  these  two  buildings  must  have  been  a  stren- 
uous one.  .  .  .  Workingmen's  clubs  are  common 
here.  I  have  often  wondered  that  we  do  not  see  them 
in  the  United  States.  ...  A  few  days  ago,  the 
New  Zealand  Press  Association,  which  answers  to  our 
Associated  Press,  sent  out  a  telegram  which  offended 
labor-union  men.  Thereupon  the  firemen  in  an  Auck- 
land ferry  service  went  on  strike,  and  greatly  incon- 
venienced the  public.  The  firemen  had  no  quarrel 
with  their  employers,  but  quit  work  because  their  dig- 
nity had  been  offended  by  the  newspapers.  The  news- 
papers of  Australia  and  New  Zealand  criticise  the  labor 
unions  much  more  freely  than  do  the  newspapers  of  the 
United  States.  Here  business  houses  are  compelled 
by  law  to  close  on  certain  days,  and  the  workingmen 
have  become  so  powerful  that  they  have  divided  into 
two  parties,  and  are  fighting  each  other.  Many  New- 
Zealanders  have  told  me  that  the  big  fight  is  yet  to 
come,  and  that  this  fight  will  be  between  the  people 
and  the  labor  unions.  ...  I  went  into  a  meat 
market  today,  and  inquired  prices.  A  rib  roast  of 
beef  costs  twelve  cents  a  pound ;  a  sirloin  roast,  four- 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.  49 

teen  cents.  Round  steak  costs  thirteen  cents  a  pound  ; 
the  butcher  told  me  he  rarely  sold  a  sirloin  steak,  but 
when  he  does,  he  gets  twenty  cents  a  pound  for  it. 
Leg  of  mutton  sells  for  twelve  cents  a  pound,  and  mut- 
ton chops,  thirteen.  Pork  chops  are  sixteen  cents  a 
pound,  and  ham  and  bacon  twenty-four  cents.  The 
butcher  makes  a  difference  in  price  when  a  customer 
has  meat  delivered  and  charged.  Butchers  at  home 
do  not  make  this  distinction ;  the  man  who  pays  cash, 
and  carries  his  purchase  home,  is  charged  as  much  as 
the  patron  who  runs  an  account,  and  has  everything 
delivered.  The  beef  here  is  inferior  to  ours ;  there  is 
no  such  thing  in  New  Zealand  as  corn-fed  cattle.  .  .  . 
We  also  visited  a  dry-goods  store,  and,  so  far  as  Ade- 
laide was  able  to  judge,  prices  were  not  much  lower 
than  at  home.  Besides,  everything  seemed  out  of 
style.  ...  In  Atchison,  market  gardeners  sell 
tomato  and  cabbage  plants  growing  hi  boxes.  Today 
we  saw  plants  grown  in  exactly  the  same  way  in  front 
of  Auckland  grocery  stores,  as  this  is  the  season  for 
making  garden  here.  ...  I  have  never  seen  bet- 
ter-looking horses  anywhere  than  I  see  in  Auckland. 
They  are  usually  of  the  Clydesdale  strain.  All  sorts 
of  live-stock  seem  well  fed  and  well  bred.  .  .  .  This 
is  a  poor  trip,  compared  with  the  trip  through  Japan, 
China,  India,  etc.  There  the  people  dress  and  look 
different;  here  the  people  are  so  much  like  those  at 
home  that  we  do  not  seem  to  have  been  away,  if  we  can 
forget  the  pronunciations.  ...  In  the  poorer 
quarters  of  Auckland,  we  saw  a  meal  advertised  for 
twelve  cents.  It  consisted  of  tea,  bread  and  butter, 
and  fish.  .  .  .  Anything  that  sells  for  a  nickel  at 


50  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

home,  is  six  cents  here.  I  had  my  shoes  shined  at  a 
street  stand  today,  and  the  price  was  six  cents.  There 
is  no  five-cent  piece  in  English  currency,  but  there  is  a 
six-cent  silver  piece.  There  is  nothing  here  answering 
to  our  ten-cent  piece  except  the  sixpence,  which  is 
worth  twelve  cents.  There  are  five-  and  ten-cent 
stores  here,  but  their  prices  are  six  and  twelve  cents. 
.  .  .  When  we  want  a  guide,  we  get  a  boy  from  the 
hotel,  who  is  known  as  "Buttons."  At  meal-times, 
his  business  is  to  go  through  the  dining-room,  and  take 
orders  for  liquor.  He  also  sings  in  the  vested  choir 
in  the  largest  Episcopal  church  in  town.  We  passed 
his  church  yesterday,  and  he  offered  to  take  us  in  and 
introduce  us  to  the  pastor,  but  we  were  compelled  to 
decline  the  honor,  owing  to  lack  of  time.  Wherever  I 
go,  I  employ  boy  guides.  They  know  the  interesting 
places,  and  point  them  out,  but  have  no  problems  to 
discuss  as  men  have.  ...  A  sign  we  see  here  fre- 
quently is  "Private  Bar."  What  is  a  private  bar? 
Does  it  mean  a  bar  operated  by  a  man  who  has  a  saloon 
for  his  own  private  use,  and  a  bartender  who  waits  on 
no  one  else?  ...  In  the  bar  connected  with  the 
Hotel  Royal  are  two  girl  bartenders,  and  they  are 
good-looking,  stylish  girls.  ...  A  big  store  near 
our  hotel  is  operated  by  "John  Court,  Limited."  That 
word  Limited  is  frequently  seen  abroad,  and  seems  to 
mean  the  same  thing  as  "Incorporated"  with  us.  ... 
At  home,  we  have  a  saying  that  oysters  are  good  only 
in  the  months  which  have  an  "r"  in  them.  Here, 
oysters  are  at  their  best  in  April,  May,  June,  July  and 
August,  and  out  of  season  in  the  months  which  have 
an  "r"  in  them.  .  .  .  In  an  early  walk  this  morn- 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.  51 

ing,  I  saw  a  man  riding  a  horse,  and  driving  a  big  bunch 
of  sheep  and  cattle  through  the  streets.  He  was  as- 
sisted by  three  of  the  cleverest  shepherd  dogs  I  have 
ever  seen,  and  it  was  a  sight  well  worth  seeing.  During 
the  same  walk  I  ran  across  a  man  who  was  selling  rab- 
bits from  a  cart.  He  told  me  the  rabbits  had  been 
trapped  the  day  before,  and  shipped  to  Auckland  by 
rail.  He  sold  two  young  rabbits  for  a  shilling,  or 
twelve  cents  each,  and  called  out  as  he  drove  along: 
"Wild  rabbits;  wild  rabbits."  In  Australia,  rabbits 
have  become  so  numerous  that  they  are  a  menace  and 
a  danger,  but  this  Auckland  rabbit-seller  told  me  that 
in  New  Zealand  the  supply  of  rabbits  is  not  equal  to 
the  demand.  .  .  .  New  Zealand  is  not  an  old 
country;  its  history  really  dates  from  about  1840. 
Although  Captain  Cook,  in  1769,  discovered  and  ex- 
plored the  two  islands  composing  New  Zealand,  its 
real  history  did  not  begin  until  almost  a  century  later, 
when  the  native  Maoris,  after  a  war  lasting  eleven 
years,  concluded  a  treaty  with  the  English.  Austra- 
lia and  New  Zealand,  although  nominally  English  col- 
onies, are  as  free  and  independent  as  any  countries  in 
the  world. 


TUESDAY,  JANUARY  14. — We  have  devoted  this  day 
to  a  railroad  journey  from  Auckland  to  Rotorua,  the 
center  of  the  Lake  district.  Here  are  located  the  gey- 
sers which  are  said  to  rival  those  in  Yellowstone  Park. 
Here  are  located,  also,  famous  baths,  and  Rotorua  is 
probably  the  most  noted  watering-place  in  Australasia. 
.  .  .  The  railway  station  in  Auckland  is  located 


52  TRAVEL   LETTERS   FROM 

next  to  the  postoffice,  and  very  properly,  since  the  gov- 
ernment owns  the  railway  as  well  as  the  postoffice. 
No  trains  are  run  at  night,  as  a  rule,  and  none  on  Sun- 
day, except  an  important  mail  train  between  Auckland 
and  Wellington.  The  railway  is  a  narrow  gauge,  and 
we  traveled  on  it  very  comfortably  from  10  A.  M.  until 
6  P.  M.  At  noon,  luncheon  was  served  in  a  dining-car, 
and  at  3 : 30  P.  M.  the  dining-car  servants  announced 
afternoon  tea.  When  we  gave  our  tickets  to  the  con- 
ductor, he  said  "Thank  you ;"  over  here,  when  a  hotel 
waiter  shows  you  the  bill  of  fare,  and  you  say  you  will 
take  soup,  he  always  says  "Thank  you."  .  .  .  For 
miles  and  miles  we  saw  nothing  but  pasture  land,  and 
cattle  and  sheep ;  a  hundred  sheep,  probably,  to  ten 
cattle.  In  a  railroad  journey  of  eight  hours,  we  saw 
only  half  a  dozen  cultivated  fields.  These  were  de- 
voted to  oats  and  turnips.  Oats  were  in  the  shock, 
and  we  saw  several  orchards  containing  ripe  fruit. 
But  mainly  we  saw  pastures.  The  country  is  beau- 
tiful, and  it  is  prosperous,  but  its  prosperity  comes 
mainly  from  sheep.  At  several  places  we  saw  this  sign : 
"Poison  laid  for  dogs."  ...  All  the  stations  are 
named  for  the  original  Maori  settlers,  as  many  of  our 
towns  have  Indian  names.  At  many  stations  we  saw 
the  Maoris  in  considerable  numbers.  ...  I  do 
not  believe  there  is  a  shingle  roof  in  New  Zealand ;  the 
roofs  of  the  cheaper  houses  are  of  corrugated  iron  while 
the  roofs  of  the  better  class  houses  are  of  red  tile. 
Nearly  all  the  houses  in  the  country  have  fireplaces, 
and  most  of  them  are  built  of  sheet-iron.  The  winters 
here  are  very  mild,  and  a  little  fire  in  a  grate  is  all  that 
is  needed.  New  Zealand  is  a  wonderful  stock-raising 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.  53 

country,  because  of  its  mild  winters.  ...  In  the 
smoking-car  of  the  train,  the  spittoons  were  holes  in 
the  floor,  with  a  brass  top  of  the  regulation  spittoon 
pattern.  ...  In  Australia  and  New  Zealand  you 
see  the  sign  "No  smoking"  very  much  oftener  than 
anywhere  else  in  the  world.  .  .  .  There  is  no  prairie 
land  in  New  Zealand.  There  is  a  bush  to  be  cleared 
off  all  the  farm  land ;  I  don't  know  what  it  is,  but  it 
looks  like  scrub  cedar.  All  along  the  route  we  saw  this 
burning ;  that  seems  to  be  one  method  of  clearing  land 
here.  And  after  the  land  is  cleared,  it  must  be  heavily 
manured ;  at  one  country  town  I  saw  a  store  sign  which 
announced  dry  goods,  artificial  manures,  iron  mongery, 
etc.  There  is  as  much  evidence  of  prosperity  here  as 
in  the  best  sections  of  the  Middle  West,  and  you  won- 
der where  it  comes  from,  since  you  see  almost  nothing 
but  sheep.  I  didn't  see  a  poverty-stricken  looking 
house  all  day,  nor  at  any  of  the  dozens  of  stopping- 
places  did  I  see  anyone  who  seemed  to  be  poor.  .  .  . 
About  2  p.  M.  we  approached  the  mountains,  and  trav- 
eled in  them  until  we  reached  the  summit,  and  ran 
rapidly  down  the  other  side.  Near  the  top  we  en- 
countered several  sawmills,  but  they  were  rather  small 
affairs.  At  5  p.  M.  we  began  seeing,  in  the  distance, 
steam  ascending  from  geysers.  At  6  P.  M.  we  steamed 
into  Rotorua.  The  railroad  stops  here,  and  all  the 
passengers  left  the  crowded  train.  There  are  dozens 
of  boarding-houses  and  hotels;  excellent  accommo- 
dations may  be  had  for  $10.50  a  week,  and  the  Grand, 
the  best  hotel,  charges  only  $3.12  a  day  for  board  and 
room.  The  baths  rival  the  best  in  the  most  famous 
watering-places  of  the  Old  World,  and  many  spouting 


54  TRAVEL  LETTERS   FROM 

geysers  may  be  seen  in  an  hour's  walk.  In  addition, 
Rotorua  has  a  beautiful  lake,  and  anyone  can  catch 
fish  in  it;  so,  little  wonder  that  the  town  is  growing 
rapidly. 


WEDNESDAY,  JANUARY  15. — At  10  o'clock  this  morn- 
ing we  left  for  a  trip  on  the  lake.  There  were  about  a 
dozen  other  passengers  in  the  motor  boat,  and  in  half 
an  hour  most  of  them  were  seasick,  as  the  wind  was 
blowing  a  gale.  Our  destination  was  a  famous  spring 
eight  miles  away.  This  spring  heads  a  river  so  large 
that  we  sailed  in  it  in  a  boat.  The  water  gushes  up 
from  a  great  hole,  and  with  such  force  that  a  coin  will 
not  sink  in  it.  The  flow  is  twelve  million  gallons  in 
twenty-four  hours,  and  the  water  as  cold  as  ice.  From 
the  wonderful  spring,  we  went  through  a  wonderful 
river  to  a  wonderful  fall.  Three  other  boats  ac- 
companied us ;  tourists  are  as  common  here  as  they 
are  in  Egypt.  At  the  wonderful  fall,  we  ate  lunch. 
The  Grand  Hotel  sent  a  hamper  along,  and  we 
ate  while  sitting  on  a  cliff  overlooking  the  mighty 
rush  of  water.  At  the  fall  we  left  the  boat,  and 
took  a  stage  back  to  Rotorua,  stopping  on  the 
way  at  a  thermal  center  of  great  interest :  Tikitere. 
An  Irishman  married  a  Maori  woman  who  owns  the 
place,  and  he  insists  upon  charging  fifty  cents  admission. 
This  is  the  only  sight  in  the  district  for  which  a  charge 
is  made ;  the  Irishman  is  smarter  than  the  New  Zea- 
land government,  and  every  visitor  is  compelled  to  pay 
two  shillings,  or  miss  one  of  the  best  sights  in  the  dis- 
trict. Tikitere  covers  several  acres,  and  is  mainly  de- 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.  55 

voted  to  boiling  mud  springs.  There  are  thousands 
of  these  springs,  some  of  them  not  much  larger  than  your 
hand,  and  some  of  them  big  enough  to  float  a  ship. 
Imagine  a  loblolly  of  mud  boiling  violently,  and  you 
have  the  main  idea.  At  one  place  there  are  cold  and 
hot  springs  within  five  feet  of  each  other.  Near  them 
is  a  fall  of  hot  water  from  two  boiling  lakes.  Then  we 
drove  to  Blue  Lake,  an  extinct  crater  filled  with  water 
of  a  perfect  blue,  and  returned  to  the  hotel  at  6  P.  M., 
badly  sunburned  as  a  result  of  our  trip  on  the  lake  and 
in  the  stage-coach.  .  .  .  When  I  tell  people  I  had 
no  sleep  on  the  "Maheno"  because  of  snoring  gentle- 
men, they  say,  "Let  me  tell  you  what  they  did  to  me." 
And  then  they  relate  inconveniences  suffered  on  differ- 
ent ships.  But  in  spite  of  these  uncomfortable  inci- 
dents of  travel,  nothing  can  keep  the  people  at  home. 
.  .  .  The  stage  in  which  we  traveled  today  was 
pulled  by  five  horses :  two  wheelers,  and  three  hitched 
side  by  side  ahead  of  them.  The  roads  were  so  dusty 
that  the  driver  was  frequently  compelled  to  stop,  and 
wait  until  he  could  see  his  way.  .  .  .  Speaking  of 
differences  in  the  English  language  at  home  and  abroad  : 
opposite  my  room  at  the  Grand  Hotel  is  a  livery  and 
bait  stable.  Rotorua  is  a  great  place  for  livery  and 
bait  stables,  owing  to  the  tourist  trade.  From  my 
window  early  In  the  morning,  I  see  men  and  women 
coming  from  the  different  bathhouses,  with  towels  over 
their  arms.  Frequently  stages  drive  up  in  front  of 
the  hotel,  and  passengers  depart  for  sights  quite  dis- 
tant from  the  town.  There  are  a  good  many  auto- 
mobiles, also,  and  we  shall  travel  in  these  quite  ex- 
tensively when  we  leave  Rotorua  to  see  the  other 


56  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

sights  in  the  district.  On  an  average,  there  are  fifteen 
hundred  visitors  in  Rotorua,  and  a  resident  population 
of  2,500.  The  great  watering-places  in  Europe  are 
insignificant  compared  with  this  place,  because  of  the 
variety  of  natural  baths  procurable  here.  The  govern- 
ment has  spent  $200,000  on  a  bathhouse,  and  sur- 
rounded it  with  a  very  beautiful  garden  in  which  sweet 
peas  are  now  in  bloom.  This  is  also  the  home  of  the 
gladioli;  I  see  these  flowers  everywhere  in  splendid 
profusion.  In  the  park  surrounding  the  government 
bathhouse  are  several  spouting  geysers,  steam  whistlers, 
sulphur  springs,  etc.  Outside  the  park  grounds  may 
be  seen  many  sanitariums,  with  invalids  on  the  porches. 
There  is  nothing  as  effective  in  restoring  health  as 
natural  hot  springs,  and  the  variety  is  so  great  here  that 
I  wonder  the  visiting  population  is  not  much  larger  than 
fifteen  hundred. 


THURSDAY,  JANUARY  16. — The  Maoris,  or  native 
inhabitants  of  New  Zealand,  look  very  much  like  our 
Indians,  and  have  most  of  their  characteristics.  They 
are  lazy  and  shiftless,  but  good  fighters,  which  will  be 
generally  recognized  as  a  trait  of  the  North-American 
Indians.  At  the  photograph  galleries  we  see  pictures 
of  beautiful  Maori  girls,  but  none  are  to  be  seen  in  the 
native  villages,  two  of  which  are  located  -near  Rotorua. 
In  both  of  these  are  hot  springs,  and  the  natives  use 
them  for  cooking,  heating  their  houses,  and  for  bath- 
ing. In  the  hot  springs  are  placed  pots  containing 
meat  and  vegetables,  and  the  springs  are  then  covered 
over  with  old  gunny-sacks  until  the  cooking  is  complete. 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.  57 

The  women  also  do  their  washing  in  the  same  way; 
the  clothes  are  boiled  in  a  hot  spring,  and  then  soaped 
and  rubbed  in  a  stream  of  cooler  water.  While  the 
women  are  washing,  their  children  are  bathing  in  warm 
pools  near  by.  The  houses  are  built  over  hot  springs, 
and  in  cool  weather  the  warmth  is  found  very  agree- 
able. A  few  feet  away  from  the  hot  springs  may 
be  found  a  geyser  in  constant  eruption,  or  which 
erupts  every  ten  minutes,  every  hour,  every  day,  or 
every  month.  Yesterday  all  the  geysers  were  going, 
but  most  of  them  were  quiet  today.  The  district  where 
I  saw  the  native  village  covers  many  acres,  in  a  de- 
pression between  mountains,  and  is  marked  by  white 
patches  which  look  like  old  lime-kilns.  These  white 
patches  were  made  by  the  geysers ;  the  water  is  strongly 
impregnated  with  lime,  and  the  steam  and  spray  give 
everything  touched  a  coating  of  white.  We  saw  great 
holes  in  the  earth  filled  with  blue  water,  and  the  bot- 
tom as  white  as  snow.  Not  far  away  would  be  found 
another  geyser ;  a  great  loblolly  of  mud,  boiling  lazily. 
Beside  a  rushing  stream  of  cold  water  we  saw  a  hot 
spring,  and  heard  the  old  story  that  a  man  might  stand 
in  one  spot,  catch  a  trout,  and  boil  it.  A  Maori  woman 
was  our  guide,  and  we  greatly  admired  her  beautiful 
voice.  She  was  elderly,  and  ugly,  but  her  voice  was  soft 
and  musical.  She  took  us  to  a  native  Maori  fort,  and 
pointed  out  a  sort  of  bird-box  situated  on  top  of  a  pole. 
This  was  a  Spirit  House ;  a  spirit  lived  in  it,  and,  when 
danger  threatened,  the  spirit  would  speak  in  a  loud 
voice,  and  tell  the  people  what  the  danger  was,  and 
when  it  would  appear. 


58  TRAVEL  LETTERS   FROM 

"Most  ladies  and  gentlemen  do  not  believe  it,"  the 
Maori  woman  said. 

I  asked  her  if  she  believed  it,  and  she  replied  in  her 
broken  English :  "  I  used  to  did."  She  said  that  when 
she  was  a  child,  her  people  always  put  food  in  the  spirit 
house  for  the  spirit,  but  that  lately  the  custom  is  going 
out  of  fashion.  In  the  village  are  Catholic  and  Epis- 
copal churches ;  the  Catholic  priest  is  a  native  Maori, 
and  the  church  is  heated  in  cool  weather  from  a  hot 
spring  beneath  it.  .  .  .  The  Maoris  were  originally 
cannibals,  but  the  guide  said  they  ate  each  other,  and 
did  not  bother  the  whites  much.  In  one  place  we  vis- 
ited here,  we  saw  forks  made  of  human  bones.  .  .  . 
We  called  at  the  guide's  home,  and  saw  one  of  the  tin 
fireplaces  which  are  seen  in  seven-tenths  of  the  poorer 
houses.  They  cost  about  $8  put  up,  and  are  used  for 
cooking  purposes,  as  well  as  for  heating.  They  burn 
out,  after  a  time,  but  a  tinner  will  rivet  hi  a  patch  for  a 
small  charge.  They  are  certainly  very  much  cheaper 
than  the  stone  and  brick  fireplaces  we  have.  A  native 
Maori  village  looks  much  like  a  negro  suburb  in  an 
American  town,  but  the  Maoris  are  not  black;  they 
look  like  Indians  and  have  straight  hair.  Some  of  the 
women  have  their  lips  tattooed,  to  indicate  submission 
to  their  husbands,  but  there  is  a  Suffragette  movement 
on  here,  as  elsewhere,  and  the  Maori  woman  who  showed 
us  about  laughed  scornfully  at  the  notion  that  woman 
is  inferior  to  man.  .  .  .  Just  then  we  came  to  a 
place  called  the  Frog  Pond :  a  mud  lake,  and  there  is 
just  enough  steam  below  to  cause  particles  of  mud  to 
jump  like  frogs.  Near  by,  in  a  hole  in  the  earth,  the 
escaping  steam  made  a  sound  like  the  croaking  of  frogs. 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.  59 

The  Maori  woman  described  these  things,  and  then 
walked  on  in  silence,  with  a  mean  look  in  her  eyes; 
she  was  evidently  still  thinking  of  the  foolish  women 
of  her  race  who  tattoo  their  lips  to  indicate  submission 
to  their  husbands.  I  didn't  have  a  very  good  time 
after  the  woman  suffrage  question  came  up,  and  was 
glad  that  we  soon  after  reached  the  last  sight  on  the 
list.  When  women  look  at  me  in  that  funny  way  in- 
dicating that  I  impose  on  them,  I  am  thoroughly  un- 
comfortable. So  we  walked  back  to  the  entrance  to 
the  geyser  field,  and  took  a  carriage  to  Rotorua.  On  the 
way,  we  met  dozens  of  other  carriages  containing  visit- 
ors; here  people  are  always  departing  for  a  trip,  or 
returning  from  one,  and  when  the  sights  are  exhausted 
they  go  on  to  Wairakei,  where  there  is  another  collection 
of  geysers,  hot  springs,  etc.  Between  trips,  they  take 
baths,  and  there  is  a  great  variety  to  choose  from ;  no 
other  place  in  the  world  has  as  many  different  baths 
as  Rotorua,  but  the  town  is  not  easily  reached,  and  it 
doesn't  attract  as  many  people  as  Hot  Springs,  Arkan- 
sas, which  has  only  simple  hot  springs;  no  chain  of 
lakes,  no  wonderful  fishing,  no  oil  baths,  no  geysers, 
and  no  mud  baths,  as  has  Rotorua.  .  .  .  There  are 
only  two  geyser  fields  in  the  world;  the  other  is  in 
Yellowstone  Park,  in  the  United  States.  So  far  as  I 
am  able  to  judge,  the  geysers  in  Yellowstone  Park  are 
much  finer.  There  are  no  terraces  here,  as  in  the  Yel- 
lowstone, and  in  every  way  the  Yellowstone  district 
seems  superior.  But  in  a  way,  they  are  much  alike. 
The  geysers  here  are  undoubtedly  losing  their  force ; 
citizens  tell  me  they  can  see  a  difference  from  year  to 
year.  I  have  not  seen  a  geyser  so  far  more  than  ten 


60  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

or  twelve  feet  high,  but  I  saw  many  big  ones  in  the 
Yellowstone.  All  the  geysers  were  going  yesterday, 
and  it  is  said  some  of  them  shot  steam  and  hot  water 
into  the  air  to  a  height  of  forty  feet,  but  I  was  on  the 
lake  trip  yesterday,  and  did  not  see  the  big  geyser  dis- 
play which  everyone  is  talking  about  today.  But  in 
the  Yellowstone  you  can  see  a  big  geyser  display  any 
day;  indeed,  Old  Faithful  goes  off  every  hour,  and 
shoots  steam  and  hot  water  150  to  200  feet  into  the 
air.  Here  soap  is  frequently  put  into  the  geysers,  to 
make  them  show  off  for  visitors,  but  this  is  not  necessary 
in  the  Yellowstone.  This  district  had  terraces  until 
a  few  years  ago,  when  they  blew  up,  and  now  there  are 
no  others  like  those  in  Yellowstone  Park.  Besides,  the 
Yellowstone  district  is  much  wilder  and  grander  than 
the  Hot  Lake  district  of  New  Zealand.  This  is  a  won- 
derful place,  but  the  Yellowstone  is  much  more  won- 
derful, it  seems  to  me.  .  .  .  We  are  the  only  Amer- 
icans at  the  hotel,  and,  except  that  a  St.  Paul  man  was 
here  two  months  ago,  we  are  the  only  Americans  who 
have  been  here  in  a  long  time,  the  manager  says.  .  .  . 
In  the  fine  park  surrounding  the  government  bath- 
house, this  afternoon,  we  saw  dozens  of  games  going. 
There  was  bowling,  tennis,  archery,  cricket,  and  cro- 
quet, but  principally  bowling.  In  this  game  a  good 
many  elderly  men  participated;  it  is  an  old  man's 
game,  but  lately  young  men  are  playing  it.  The  lawn 
was  as  smooth  as  a  floor,  and  the  game  seemed  to  be 
to  roll  wooden  balls  to  a  goal.  The  men  over  here 
carry  the  wooden  balls,  when  traveling,  and  engage  in 
the  game  at  different  places.  I  had  never  seen  the 
game  before,  and  watched  it  for  an  hour.  The  players 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.     61 

were  very  polite  and  genteel,  but  all  had  the  pronunci- 
ation which  seems  so  queer  to  us.  I  have  seen  no  golf 
here,  but  I  am  rarely  out  of  sight  of  a  tennis  court; 
that  seems  to  be  the  universal  game.  .  .  .  The 
New  Zealand  government  has  been  so  successful  in  bus- 
iness that  it  is  now  branching  out;  it  is  operating  a 
tourist  agency  in  opposition  to  Thos.  Cook  &  Son,  who 
have  offices  all  over  the  world.  People  living  off  the 
maui  lines  of  travel  cannot  realize  how  valuable  trav- 
elers are.  In  Europe,  many  cities  devote  millions  of 
dollars  to  securing  tourist  travel,  and  find  that  it  pays. 
Paris  spends  millions  annually  in  this  way,  and  rival 
cities  are  lately  doing  a  good  deal  in  the  same  direction ; 
it  is  generally  said  that  Berlin  is  now  a  rival  of  Paris 
in  a'ttractions  for  travelers.  At  this  little  town  of 
Rotorua,  a  train-load  of  tourists  arrives  every  day,  and 
without  them  the  town  would  not  amount  to  much. 


FRIDAY,  JANUARY  17. — In  Rotorua,  a  great  deal  is 
made  of  the  native  women  who  act  as  guides.  One 
hears  of  Maggie,  the  guide,  before  reaching  the  town, 
but  we  did  not  see  her ;  she  became  so  famous  that  an 
Englishman  married  her,  and  she  is  now  living  un- 
happily in  London.  But  there  are  many  others  here, 
for  the  profession  is  easily  learned;  after  one  trip 
through  the  geyser  field,  I  am  certain  I  would  be  com- 
petent to  act  as  a  guide.  The  native  woman  who  ac- 
companied us  pointed  out  several  holes  where  people 
had  fallen  in  and  lost  their  lives.  She  says  that  when 
a  man  falls  in  a  hot  pool,  he  disappears,  and  nothing 


62  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

is  ever  seen  of  him  again,  except  his  liver;  in  a  few 
hours  after  the  man  disappears,  his  liver  is  seen  float- 
ing on  the  surface,  and  is  recovered.  This  is  the  sort 
of  information  possessed  by  the  guides.  A  native 
woman  fell  into  one  hot  crater,  and  the  guides  say  her 
screaming  can  still  be  heard.  I  listened  attentively, 
and  the  hissing  steam  made  a  noise  at  times  which 
sounded  something  like  a  woman's  scream.  ...  In 
the  warm  pools,  boys  and  girls  swim  together,  stark 
naked.  The  entrance  to  the  geyser  field  is  over  a  bridge 
spanning  a  roaring  stream,  and  girls  fourteen  and  fifteen 
years  old  jump  from  this  bridge  into  the  water,  if  pen- 
nies are  thrown  as  an  inducement.  The  jump  is  a 
high  one,  and  I  saw  no  boys  making  it.  In  one  warm 
pool  where  naked  boys  and  girls  were  in  bathing  we 
saw  a  little  white  girl,  but  the  guide  did  not  know  her, 
and  could  not  explain  how  she  came  there.  .  .  Every 
visitor  to  New  Zealand  soon  remarks  that  the  women 
do  not  care  much  about  their  feet  or  figures.  Still, 
their  waists  and  feet  do  not  seem  larger  than  they 
should  be ;  perhaps  women  in  other  parts  of  the  world 
unnaturally  pinch  themselves.  .  .  .  Tourists  do 
all  sorts  of  queer  things.  One  woman  who  sits  at  our 
table  carries  her  own  tea  and  teapot,  and  another  car- 
ries her  own  bread.  ...  A  rumor  came  to  the 
hotel  today  that  the  big  geysers  were  spouting,  and  there 
was  hurrying  among  the  guests,  but  the  rumor  proved 
only  partly  true ;  the  spouting  lasted  only  a  few  min- 
utes, and  the  guests  of  the  Grand  did  not  see  it.  Last 
Wednesday,  when  we  were  on  the  lake  trip,  the  big 
geysers  spouted  nine  hours,  breaking  all  records.  A 
bulletin  board  is  displayed  in  the  hotel  office,  and  this 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.  63 

is  used  to  keep  the  guests  informed  as  to  the  doings  of 
the  geysers.  .  .  .  There  seems  to  be  no  doubt  that 
we  look  funny.  In  walking  about,  we  hear  people  say 
to  each  other,  as  we  pass,  "They  are  Americans." 
They  say  it  softly,  and  do  not  think  we  hear  it,  for  the 
people  here  are  very  polite ;  but  we  do  hear  it,  and  we 
remark  that  people  stare  at  us  when  they  think  we 
are  not  looking.  We  undoubtedly  look  odd  to  them. 
I  wonder  if  our  talk  sounds  as  funny  to  them  as  theirs 
sounds  to  us?  .  .  .  Wages  are  not  as  high  here  as 
in  the  United  States,  but  we  often  hear  the  statement 
made  that  this  is  more  than  compensated  for  by  the 
lower  cost  of  living.  We  went  into  a  grocery  store 
today,  and  inquired  prices.  Potatoes  sell  at  three 
cents  a  pound;  cabbage,  eight  cents  a  head;  green 
peas,  thirty-two  cents  a  peck ;  sugar,  six  cents  a  pound ; 
flour,  $3  per  hundred  pounds;  bread,  eight  cents  a 
loaf;  crackers,  twelve  cents  a  pound;  tomatoes  and 
peaches,  twenty-four  cents  per  two-pound  can;  eggs, 
forty-two  cents  per  dozen ;  butter,  twenty-eight  cents 
a  pound.  An  inferior  watermelon  costs  seventy-five 
cents;  round  steak,  eighteen  cents  a  pound;  leg  of 
mutton,  twelve  cents ;  loin  of  mutton,  ten.  But  prices 
are  higher  here  than  in  the  average  New  Zealand  town, 
as  not  much  is  produced  in  this  vicinity.  The  grocer 
said  freight  rates  were  extortionate,  although  the  rail- 
road is  owned  by  the  government.  The  apples  dis- 
played were  from  California,  but  I  did  not  know  the 
variety,  although  the  grocer  asked  me  the  question. 
.  .  .  You  frequently  see  here  tin  cans  labeled 
"  Pratt's  benzine ; "  but  if  you  examine  the  label  closely, 
you  note  that  it  is  supplied  by  the  Standard  Oil  Co.,  of 


64  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

New  York.  .  .  Although  lake  trout  are  caught 
in  great  quantities  here,  it  is  against  the  law  to  sell 
them.  We  saw  a  man  come  in  today  with  as  many 
rainbow  trout  as  he  and  two  boys  could  carry.  Lake 
trout  are  not  particularly  good  fish.  Brook  trout  are 
possibly  the  best  fish  in  the  world,  but  the  lake  trout 
are  larger,  and  coarser ;  we  have  seen  them  here  weigh- 
ing twenty-two  pounds,  but  the  average  is  nearer  three 
pounds.  In  one  pool  at  Rotorua,  thousands  of  trout 
may  be  seen  swimming  around,  and  children  feed  them 
with  bread  crumbs.  .  .  .  Some  of  the  grazing  land 
in  New  Zealand,  after  it  has  been  cleared,  manured, 
and  seeded  to  grass,  becomes  very  valuable.  It  is 
worth  as  high  as  $400  an  acre.  Choice  land  is  worth 
an  equal  amount  in  Australia,  but  in  both  Australia 
and  New  Zealand  there  is  plenty  of  land  that  may  be 
had  for  almost  nothing ;  but  it  is  worth  no  more  than 
is  charged  for  it.  ...  It  is  generally  believed  that 
the  original  New-Zealanders,  the  original  Hawaiians, 
and  the  people  living  in  the  islands  between,  came  from 
the  same  general  stock.  The  language  was  evidently 
the  same  at  one  time,  and  has  been  corrupted  into  dia- 
lects. The  native  New-Zealanders  are  exactly  like 
our  American  Indians,  in  appearance ;  perhaps  they  are 
all  of  the  same  original  stock.  The  people  of  Samoa 
look  like  the  Hawaiians,  the  Mexicans  and  the  Indians ; 
and  the  people  of  the  South  Sea  islands  were  such  ad- 
venturous navigators  that  the  Samoan  group  is  also 
known  as  the  Navigator  Islands,  and  probably  many 
centuries  ago  the  islands  extended  much  nearer  to  the 
mainland  of  North  America  than  at  present.  The  sur- 
face of  the  earth  is  constantly  changing ;  where  lofty 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.  65 

mountain  ranges  once  existed,  are  now  vast  level  plains ; 
our  present  tropics  were  once  in  the  frigid  zone,  and 
many  islands  that  once  existed  have  disappeared.  No 
doubt  the  original  inhabitants  of  North  America  found 
their  way  there  from  the  westward,  by  means  which  we 
cannot  now  clearly  understand.  .  .  .  New  Zea- 
land was  originally  a  very  poor  country ;  it  had  almost 
no  animals,  and  its  vegetation  was  scanty.  All  the 
sheep,  cattle,  horses,  hogs,  fowls,  deer,  etc.,  were 
brought  here;  when  Captain  Cook  was  killed  in  the 
Hawaiian  islands,  by  natives,  he  had  been  distributing 
live-stock  hi  the  islands  of  the  South  Seas,  to  benefit 
the  inhabitants.  Trout  are  now  plentiful  in  the  clear 
and  rapid  streams  of  New  Zealand,  but  they  were 
brought  here.  Before  the  American  Revolution  there 
were  plenty  of  hogs  in  Australia,  New  Zealand,  and  the 
South  Sea  islands.  The  natives  traded  hogs  to  the 
sailors  for  knives,  nails,  hatchets,  etc.,  and  these  hogs 
had  been  introduced  by  white  men,  at  great  expense 
and  trouble.  The  white  man  has  always  been  trying 
to  help  his  more  backward  dark-skinned  brother. 


SATURDAY,  JANUARY  18. — Rotorua,  with  all  its 
charms,  becomes  very  tiresome  after  a  few  days.  A 
second  visit  to  the  geyser  fields  is  like  seeing  a  play  a 
second  time,  and  we  are  impatient  to  move  on.  The 
first  time  you  see  fifteen-year-old  girls,  scantily  dressed, 
diving  for  pennies,  it  is  a  startling  sight,  but  in  a  little 
while  you  do  not  care  for  it.  When  two  Maori  women 
meet,  they  rub  their  foreheads  together.  That  cere- 


66  TRAVEL  LETTERS   FROM 

mony  interested  me  for  a  time,  but  it  does  not  now, 
and  we  leave  here  tomorrow.  .  .  .  When  we  first 
arrived,  the  manager  said  :  "I  will  seat  you  in  the  din- 
ing-room with  an  American."  The  man  was  exactly 
like  an  American,  but  he  actually  came  from  Vancou- 
ver, B.  C.  Canadians  are  more  like  Americans  than 
any  other  people.  ...  I  have  not  seen  such  a  thing 
as  door  or  window  screens  in  New  Zealand.  This  is 
the  middle  of  summer,  and  flies  are  numerous,  but  no 
attempt  is  made  to  keep  them  out.  I  dislike  to  pass 
a  meat  market,  because  I  always  encounter  great 
swarms  of  flies.  They  have  ice  here,  but  do  not  use 
it  much.  .  .  .  We  visited  a  moving-picture  the- 
atre this  afternoon,  and  it  was  exactly  like  the  moving- 
picture  shows  at  home;  ridiculous  plays  of  the  melo- 
drama order,  made  in  America,  and  an  orchestra  con- 
sisting of  a  piano-player  who  plays  with  tremendous 
force.  As  we  came  away  from  the  moving-picture 
show  we  passed  the  smallest  hotel  hi  town,  and  of 
course  it  was  known  as  "The  Palace."  ...  I 
have  never  seen  such  magnificent  sweet  pea  blooms 
as  I  have  seen  here,  and  they  are  now  at  their  best. 
Roses  also  seem  to  do  particularly  well  here,  and  we 
visited  a  rose  garden  today  which  would  have  done 
credit  to  California.  There  was  an  acre  or  more  of 
roses,  and  all  the  varieties  seemed  to  be  different. 
The  garden  is  owned  by  the  government,  which  does 
all  sorts  of  things  over  here,  and  is  cared  for  by  con- 
victs. .  .  .  We  have  had  no  mail  from  home  in 
five  weeks.  The  people  at  the  American  naval  sta- 
tion at  Pago  Pago,  Samoa,  receive  mail  only  once  a 
month,  and  say  they  do  not  mind  it ;  that  mail  every 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.  67 

day  is  a  daily  worry,  whereas  if  you  receive  mail  but 
once  a  month  your  worries  are  greatly  reduced.  You 
are  always  expecting  important  mail  which  never  ar- 
rives, and  a  daily  mail,  they  say,  is  really  a  nuisance. 
.  .  .  One  of  the  baths  here  is  known  as  a  Spout 
bath.  You  go  down  into  a  cave,  and  water  falls  on 
you  from  six  feet  above.  The  water  comes  from  one 
of  the  boiling  springs,  cooled  to  an  endurable  temper- 
ature by  the  addition  of  a  stream  from  a  cold  lake. 
Water  is  conducted  from  the  lakes  in  trenches  to  the 
baths.  The  water  in  the  Spout  bath  has  a  good  deal 
of  oil  hi  it,  and  is  said  to  be  particularly  good  for  rheu- 
matism. But  the  worst  case  of  rheumatism  I  ever  saw 
was  in  front  of  the  Spout  bathhouse.  A  native  man 
was  so  crippled  with  it  that  he  moved  as  slowly  as  a 
snail,  and  was  a  pitiful  object.  .  .  .  There  arrived 
at  this  hotel  today  a  man  and  wife  I  had  known  on  the 
"Sonoma."  He  is  a  fine  old  gentleman  who  lives  in  a 
country  town  in  Ohio,  but  he  has  at  least  one  habit  to 
which  his  wife  seriously  objects.  They  sat  opposite 
us  in  the  dining-room,  and  I  noticed  that  the  old  gentle- 
man parted  his  hair  behind,  in  the  old-fashioned  way. 
And  it  seemed,  also,  that  he  used  hair  oil,  for  regularly 
three  times  a  day  I  heard  his  wife  mumbling  a  protest 
because  of  this  hair-oil  habit.  And  tonight  at  dinner 
the  wife  appeared  alone,  and  was  seated  at  our  table, 
as  the  manager  knew  we  were  acquaintances.  Pres- 
ently the  old  gentleman  appeared;  he  had  been  in- 
dulging in  his  favorite  dissipation,  hair  oil,  and  his  wife 
at  once  noticed  it,  and  mumbled  a  protest.  The  old 
gentleman  pays  no  attention  to  her;  indeed,  he  does 
not  pay  much  attention  to  anyone,  as  he  is  a  very  quiet 


68  TRAVEL  LETTERS   FROM 

man.  On  the  "Sonoma"  he  was  an  early  riser,  as  I 
was,  and  usually  he  barely  spoke  to  me  when  I  ap- 
peared. But  I  saw  him  quite  animated  one  morning. 
He  was  seated  on  deck,  looking  out  at  the  sea,  and,  soon 
after  I  sat  down  near  him,  he  burst  out  into  a  tirade 
against  the  farmers  with  whom  he  did  business  as  a 
country  merchant  thirty  or  forty  years  ago.  He  said 
that  in  the  old  day  he  bought  wrapping-twine  of  farmers, 
and  that  almost  invariably  he  found  a  stone  in  the  mid- 
dle of  each  ball.  One  conspicuous  offender  was  an  old 
Baptist  deacon.  On  one  occasion,  when  this  man  came 
into  the  store  after  sugar,  the  merchant  placed  in  the 
scoop,  with  the  sugar,  a  number  of  stones  taken  from 
balls  of  twine  purchased  of  the  deacon.  The  deacon 
watched  the  performance,  but  never  said  a  word ;  he 
knew  he  was  guilty,  and  calmly  took  his  medicine. 
.  .  .  I  have  witnessed  many  amateur  performances, 
but  the  most  amusing  one  I  saw  in  Rotorua  this  even- 
ing. It  was  an  entertainment  given  by  native  Maoris, 
and  the  women  guides  had  been  selling  tickets  several 
days.  The  accompaniments  were  played  on  an  ac- 
cordion, and  twenty-five  persons  took  part  in  some  of 
the  numbers.  Twelve  young  girls  sang,  and  among 
them  I  noticed  a  number  of  the  fifteen-year-old  divers 
who  had  jumped  for  my  pennies  yesterday  at  the  bridge 
marking  the  entrance  to  the  geyser  field.  Fourteen 
men  gave  a  war  dance,  and  about  that  number  of 
women  gave  a  "  hooche-kooche."  The  entire  perform- 
ance was  of  this  character,  and  so  poor  that  it  was 
amusing.  After  appearing  on  the  stage,  the  per- 
formers came  down  to  seats  in  the  audience,  as  ama- 
teurs do  everywhere,  and  laughed  and  giggled.  Every 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.  69 

act  was  applauded,  and  every  performer  had  an  encore 
number.  One  of  the  men  who  appeared  in  the  war 
dance  must  have  been  seventy  years  old ;  rather  ven- 
erable, I  thought,  for  an  amateur.  We  stood  it  for  an 
hour,  because  there  was  absolutely  nothing  else  to  do. 
The  English  pickle  and  jam  manufacturers,  and  trades- 
men of  every  kind,  claim  notable  patrons,  therefore  I 
was  not  surprised  to  find  this  on  the  programme : 
"Patronized  by  Lord  Kitchener,  Madame  Melba,  and 
many  other  distinguished  visitors."  The  performance 
closed  with  the  song,  "God  Save  the  King,"  and  a 
dance.  The  audience  was  small,  and  composed  en- 
tirely of  whites,  but  out  in  front  of  the  hall  were  hun- 
dreds of  Maoris  lounging  about. 


SUNDAY,  JANUARY  19. — I  write  this  by  the  light  of  a 
tallow  candle  in  a  little  hotel  twenty-four  miles  from 
Rotorua.  We  came  here  today  by  a  circuitous  route, 
and  saw  many  wonders  on  the  way.  The  hotel  at 
which  I  am  a  guest  tonight  exists  to  accommodate 
visitors  to  the  Waiotapu  valley  geysers,  and  these  I 
shall  see  tomorrow  morning,  and  proceed  to  Wairakei, 
twenty-seven  miles,  by  motor  in  the  afternoon.  The 
names  here  are  something  dreadful ;  one  place  we  visited 
yesterday  is  called  Whakarewarewa,  but  people  refer  to 
it  familiarly  as  Whak.  .  .  .  We  left  Rotorua  at 
8 :  15  this  morning,  by  stage.  We  had  seats  with  the 
driver,  which,  in  staging,  is  an  honor  equal  to  a  seat 
at  the  captain's  table  on  a  ship.  We  had  a  pleasant 
drive  of  three  hours  through  mountains,  passing  Green 


70  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

and  Blue  lakes  on  the  way.  One  lake  is  really  green 
and  the  other  is  really  blue,  and  both  may  be  seen  at 
the  same  time  from  a  high  place  on  the  stage  road.  At 
Green  lake  we  encountered  a  photographer,  who,  after 
taking  our  picture,  accompanied  us  down  to  a  buried 
town.  While  we  were  looking  at  these  ruins,  which 
occupied  us  possibly  half  an  hour,  the  photographer 
developed  and  printed  the  picture,  and  took  orders 
from  certainly  ten  of  the  fourteen  passengers.  .  .  . 
In  1886  this  section  was  visited  by  an  earthquake.  A 
tract  of  country  nineteen  miles  long  was  affected,  and 
135  people,  mostly  natives,  were  killed.  After  taking 
a  look  at  the  town  buried  hi  1886,  we  drove  a  mile, 
and  embarked  on  a  launch  for  a  ride  of  eight  miles. 
Then  we  walked  over  a  mountain,  and  embarked  on 
another  launch  for  a  ride  of  six  miles  across  White  lake. 
This  lake  is  really  a  crater,  and  in  spots  the  water  is 
boiling  hot.  For  some  reason,  the  water  is  nearly  as 
white  as  milk,  and  in  the  crumbling  walls  surrounding 
the  lake  are  hundreds  of  smoking  geysers.  The  place 
looks  like  a  lake  in  purgatory,  and  the  country  surround- 
ing it  is  as  desolate  and  barren  as  can  be  imagined. 
On  this  ride  we  passed  the  site  of  the  terraces,  or  mam- 
moth hot  springs,  which  were  destroyed  by  the  eruption 
twenty-six  years  ago.  When  we  landed,  we  met  an- 
other party,  going  the  route  we  had  come,  and,  as  soon 
as  we  disembarked,  they  went  on  board,  and  left  us. 
We  found  an  old  guide  waiting  for  us,  and  started  on  a 
walk  of  three  miles  through  a  lava-bed.  We  were  al- 
ways in  sight  of  smoking  springs  and  geysers.  At  one 
place  we  were  compelled  to  ford  a  considerable  stream, 
and  the  guide  carried  the  women  across.  .  .  .  The 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.  71 

guide  was  much  the  smartest  man  of  his  profession  we 
have  seen.  Just  how  accurate  his  information  is,  I 
do  not  know.  He  says  that  most  of  the  great  processes 
in  geology  are  carried  on  by  internal  fires  in  the  earth, 
and  that  what  we  see  on  the  surface  here  is  constantly 
going  on,  on  a  very  much  larger  scale,  deeper  down. 
The  water  from  every  cool,  limpid  spring  is  sent  to  the 
surface  by  the  same  forces  that  cause  the  mud  lakes 
to  bubble  and  growl ;  the  water  of  every  cold  spring 
was  originally  steam,  and  the  water  was  cleaned  of 
impurities  on  its  long  journey  to  the  surface.  .  .  . 
The  geyser  field  of  New  Zealand  is  more  than  a  hundred 
miles  long,  and  during  our  journey  of  twenty-four  miles 
today  we  were  rarely  out  of  sight  of  smoking  springs. 
But  the  most  curious  thing  we  have  seen  is  the  White 
lake,  which  occupies  a  crater  caused  by  the  earth- 
quake of  1886.  The  lake  has  no  outlet,  and,  until  a 
few  years  ago,  was  a  mud  geyser.  Then  it  began  to  fill 
with  hot  water  from  below.  In  spots  the  water  is 
only  warm  at  the  surface,  but  in  many  places  it  is  boil- 
ing. .  .  .  The  end  of  our  three-mile  walk  was  a 
government  rest-house.  Here  we  found  a  carriage 
awaiting  us,  and  we  drove  seven  miles  to  the  hotel 
where  we  are  spending  the  night.  A  storm  was  threat- 
ening when  we  arrived  at  the  rest-house,  and  we  were 
anxious  to  hurry  on,  but  the  English  people  with  us 
insisted  on  having  their  afternoon  tea,  and  we  were 
forced  to  wait  for  them.  .  .  .  Part  of  the  country 
over  which  we  traveled  today  looked  like  the  lake 
district  of  Scotland ;  the  first  lake  on  which  we  trav- 
eled reminded  me  of  Loch  Katrine,  and  the  stage  road 
to  it  was  something  like  the  Trossachs.  But  after  we 


72  TRAVEL  LETTERS  PROM 

reached  the  lake  where  the  water  is  white,  and  occupy- 
ing a  crater  smoking  all  around  the  edges,  we  saw  some- 
thing we  had  never  seen  the  like  of  before.  .  .  . 
Wild  blackberries  are  a  pest  in  this  section.  We  saw 
hundreds  of  acres  of  wild  blackberry  bushes  during 
our  drive  today,  the  berries  just  ripening.  The  best 
way  to  get  rid  of  the  bushes,  the  driver  said,  was  to  put 
goats  among  them.  .  .  .  This  lava  district  was 
formerly  considered  worthless.  Some  years  ago  a  man 
leased  fifteen  thousand  acres  of  it  from  the  government, 
at  a  rental  of  £29  per  year,  or  $145.  He  burned  off 
the  bush,  sowed  a  lot  of  clover  seed,  and  is  now  getting 
rich  from  sheep.  .  .  .  When  I  arrived  at  this  hotel 
I  was  very  dirty  and  dusty,  from  riding  on  two  stages 
on  dusty  roads.  So  I  asked  the  proprietor  for  a  bath. 
He  gave  me  a  towel,  and  called  a  boy,  who  led  me  to  a 
creek  two  hundred  yards  down  the  hill.  The  water 
was  warm,  and,  after  warning  me  not  to  go  above  or 
below  into  very  hot  water,  the  boy  left  me  to  en- 
joy my  swim.  .  .  .  On  a  ship,  an  American  is  al- 
ways interested  in  seeing  the  English  passengers  going 
to  their  morning  baths.  They  are  seen  in  all  the  halls 
and  on  all  the  decks,  barefooted,  and  wearing  pajamas. 
But  early  this  morning,  at  the  Grand  Hotel  in  Rotorua, 
I  saw  a  still  more  unusual  sight.  An  Englishman  came 
out  of  the  hotel  at  7  :  30  wearing  slippers  on  bare  feet, 
and  dressed  only  in  pajamas.  I  supposed.he  was  going 
to  one  of  the  hotel  bathrooms,  but  instead  of  that,  he 
walked  out  on  the  streets  of  Rotorua,  and  calmly  pro- 
ceeded to  one  of  the  big  bathhouses  three  or  four  blocks 
away.  He  was  dressed  exactly  as  I  represent  him; 
bareheaded,  and  smoking  a  pipe.  .  .  .  While  tak- 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.  73 

ing  an  early  walk  this  morning,  I  encountered  the  court- 
house in  Rotorua.  Here  are  some  of  the  signs  on  the 
office  doors:  "Stipendiary  Magistrate;"  "Registrar 
of  Old  Age  Pensions;"  "Vaccination  Inspector;" 
"Registrar  of  Deaths,  Births  and  Marriages."  The 
office  hours  of  the  different  officials  were :  Saturdays, 
10  A.  M.  to  noon ;  week  days,  10  A.  M.  to  1  p.  M.,  2 
p.  M.  to  4  P.  M.  Counting  holidays,  that  is  an  average 
of  about  four  hours  a  day  for  New  Zealand  officials. 
.  .  .  At  the  moving-picture  shows  here  the  best 
seats  are  36  cents,  and  a  seat  on  a  bench  in  the  ex- 
treme rear  of  the  hall  costs  12  cents.  ...  In  a 
Rotorua  paper  I  picked  up  last  night,  I  saw  a  statement 
that  a  man  had  been  fined  $125  "for  sly  grog-selling." 
That  is  what  we  call  "bootlegging." 


MONDAY,  JANUARY  20. — I  awoke  this  morning  at  5 
o'clock,  and  found  the  sun  coming  up.  You  have  per- 
haps noted  that  the  sun  is  not  up  at  5  A.  M.  on  the  20th 
of  January  in  our  part  of  the  world.  While  the  days 
are  very  warm  here,  the  nights  are  quite  cool ;  at  5  A.  M. 
I  was  quite  cold  in  bed,  and  awoke  to  look  for  more 
covering.  ...  I  read  myself  to  sleep  last  night, 
very  comfortably,  by  the  light  of  a  tallow  candle. 
Electric  lights  do  not  seem  to  be  absolutely  necessary 
to  the  comfort  of  mankind.  ...  In  riding  over 
the  mountains  here,  I  find  great  tracts  of  flourishing 
pine  trees  which  have  been  planted  by  the  government. 
Convicts  did  the  work.  By  this  means,  the  barren 
mountains  are  being  changed  into  a  living  green.  .  .  . 


74  TRAVEL  LETTERS   FROM 

Late  last  night,  a  man  somewhere  about  the  hotel  en- 
gaged in  singing;  alcoholic  singing,  I  judged.  The 
vulgar  rich  are  generously  abused,  but  I  have  noticed 
that  the  higher  priced  the  hotel,  the  more  polite  the 
guests  are.  .  .  .  But  while  this  little  hotel  in  the 
mountains  of  New  Zealand  is  somewhat  primitive,  I 
prefer  it  to  the  best  steamship  that  ever  existed.  For 
breakfast  this  morning  we  had  soft-boiled  eggs,  toast 
and  coffee,  with  mutton  chops  and  bacon  offered. 
That  is  enough  for  anyone.  But  on  a  ship  you  are 
offered  a  hundred  things  you  do  not  want,  by  pro- 
fessional waiters  who  are  wondering  how  much  of  a 
gratuity  they  can  coax  out  of  you.  The  breakfast  this 
morning  was  served  by  a  girl  who,  barring  her  pronun- 
ciation, seemed  real  nice.  She  expects  no  tip;  she 
expects  her  pay  from  the  proprietor,  whom  I  have 
heard  her  refer  to  as  Mr.  Hickey.  And  while  my  room 
is  small,  I  at  least  haven't  two  snoring  gentlemen  in 
with  me.  ...  A  young  gentleman  who  ate  break- 
fast with  me  has  charge  of  the  local  postoffice,  and  says 
there  are  several  big  sheep  ranches  in  the  vicinity,  from 
which  he  gets  a  good  deal  of  mail.  The  sheep  here  are 
well  bred,  and  not  at  all  like  the  range  sheep  of  the 
United  States.  .  .  .  While  writing  in  my  room  last 
night  I  felt  a  shock,  and  thought  some  object  had  fallen 
about  the  hotel.  This  morning  I  learned  it  was  an 
earthquake;  we  had  three  shocks  during  the  night. 
Near  this  place  is  a  place  called  Earthquake  Flat.  In 
passing  it  the  stage-drivers  rest  their  teams  a  few  min- 
utes, and  give  the  passengers  a  chance  to  experience  an 
earthquake  shock.  Ten  minutes  never  goes  by  at  that 
point  without  one.  At  Rotorua,  one  night  we  were 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.  75 

there,  sixty  earthquake  shocks  were  noted  from  6  p.  M. 
to  6  A.  M.  .  .  .  This  morning,  in  walking  through 
the  Waiotapu  geyser  field,  we  had  a  satisfactory  guide ; 
a  native  Maori.  He  didn't  say  much,  and,  if  we  wanted 
to  know  about  anything,  asked  him  about  it.  Yester- 
day we  had  a  guide  who  talked  incessantly,  and  he  was 
a  bore.  He  was  an  Englishman,  and  we  were  glad  to 
get  rid  of  him.  Adelaide  refused  to  go  out  to  the  gey- 
ser field  this  morning ;  she  is  tired  seeing  them,  as  they 
are  all  much  alike.  .  .  .  At  1  p.  M.  today  we  left 
Waiotapu  for  Wairakei,  in  a  seven-passenger  Napier 
automobile.  The  distance  is  twenty-seven  miles,  over 
a  mountain  road,  and  we  ran  it  in  two  hours,  with  the 
usual  rests  for  tea.  The  roads  were  good,  and  the  ride 
enjoyable.  The  Napier  is  an  English  six-cylinder  car, 
and  the  driver  was  very  capable  and  agreeable.  .  .  . 
Arriving  at  the  hotel  at  Wairakei,  we  found  the  most 
gallant  man  in  the  world.  He  runs  a  hotel  consisting 
of  a  number  of  detached  buildings.  In  the  main  one 
he  has  two  toilet-rooms  for  women,  with  modern  plumb- 
ing, but  the  men  are  compelled  to  content  themselves 
with  a  toilet-room  of  the  country-hotel  pattern,  located 
out  in  the  yard,  near  the  stables,  and  it  is  very  filthy, 
and  filled  with  big  blue  flies.  Another  law  I  suggest 
is,  that  no  man  be  allowed  to  conduct  a  hotel  until  he  is 
able  to  provide  proper  toilet  facilities.  The  hotel  at 
Wairakei  is  located  near  a  geyser  field.  Another  differ- 
ence between  Yellowstone  Park  and  the  New  Zealand 
geyser  country  is  that  in  the  Yellowstone  you  find 
modern  hotels;  that  at  the  Norris  geyser  basin  is  a 
palace.  Here,  after  leaving  Rotorua,  we  found  the 
hotels  primitive,  and  not  very  comfortable.  .  .  . 


76  TRAVEL  LETTERS   PROM 

There  are  many  deer  in  New  Zealand ;  also  wild  cattle, 
wild  pigs,  California  quail,  pheasants,  etc.  Several 
times  I  have  seen  California  quail  along  the  country 
roads.  ...  A  remarkable  thing  we  saw  yesterday 
was  a  mud  volcano ;  a  small  mountain,  in  the  center 
of  which  was  a  boiling  mud  spring.  The  spring  is  con- 
stantly throwing  out  mud,  and  thus  the  mountain 
grows  steadily  in  height.  .  .  .  To  be  a  Maori,  is 
to  be  a  pensioner.  The  natives  employ  smart  lawyers 
to  bring  all  sorts  of  claims  against  the  government,  and 
these  win  often  enough  to  be  profitable.  The  lands  the 
natives  own  are  uncultivated,  and  the  natives  are  a 
drawback  to  the  country.  All  of  which  is  very  much 
American  Indian.  .  .  .  Over  here  the  government 
does  everything,  including  selling  tickets  to  tourists. 
The  government  owns  the  town  of  Rotorua,  and  brings 
it  water  and  light  from  waterfalls  in  the  neighboring 
mountains.  ...  If  you  are  a  bad  sleeper,  do  not 
travel.  I  was  awake  at  4  o'clock  this  morning,  and 
there  was  not  the  slightest  noise  about  the  hotel  from 
that  hour  until  7 :  15,  when  I  heard  an  alarm  clock  go 
off.  You  don't  know  what  it  is  to  be  really  lonesome 
unless  you  have  spent  a  sleepless  night  in  a  strange 
hotel  in  a  strange  country.  ...  A  man  came  in 
this  evening  from  Lake  Taupo,  with  a  big  catch  of 
trout.  Some  of  the  fish  were  very  thin  in  flesh;  so 
thin  that  they  were  worthless.  It  is  said  fish  are  so 
plentiful  hi  the  lake  that  there  is  not  enough  for  them 
to  eat.  Most  of  the  fish  weighed  from  six  to  seven 
pounds.  .  .  .  We  hear  of  geysers  that  shoot  steam 
and  hot  water  fifteen  hundred  feet  in  the  air,  but  we 
have  seen  no  geyser  here  more  than  thirty  feet  high. 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.  77 

The  big  sights  are  always  just  over  when  I  come  along. 
.  .  .  At  this  hotel,  when  you  wish  to  take  a  bath, 
you  go  out  to  the  manager's  office,  and  find  a  key  hang- 
ing beside  the  door.  This  key  opens  a  door  down  in 
the  canyon,  back  of  the  hotel.  The  bath  consists  of  a 
great  pool  of  hot  water.  There  is  no  roof  over  the 
pool,  but  it  is  fenced  in.  Within  the  enclosure,  also, 
is  a  pool  of  cold  water,  into  which  you  may  plunge  after 
a  hot  bath.  Certain  hours  are  devoted  to  gentlemen, 
and  certain  hours  to  ladies.  .  .  .  Rooms  in  this 
hotel  are  also  lighted  with  candles,  and  I  dislike  to 
blow  out  my  candle  and  go  to  bed,  as  I  can  smell  the 
extinguished  wick  half  the  night.  .  .  .  The  food 
in  New  Zealand  is  universally  good ;  we  have  come  to 
the  conclusion  that  the  New-Zealanders  are  famous 
cooks.  .  .  .  We  find  a  good  many  private  cars 
touring  in  this  section,  as  the  government  devotes  much 
attention  to  roads,  which  are  generally  excellent,  bar- 
ring the  terrible  dust.  Yesterday  we  met  a  little  Ford 
machine,  and  it  seemed  to  be  kicking  up  about  as  much 
dust  as  any  of  them.  .  .  .  The  rainfall  here  is 
greater  than  in  the  best  agricultural  sections  of  the 
United  States,  but  the  bulk  of  the  rain  falls  in  winter, 
whereas  our  moisture  is  better  distributed  over  the 
growing  season. 


TUESDAY,  JANUARY  21. — We  have  made  three  trips 
today,  looking  at  the  wonders  in  the  Wairakei  field; 
we  have  devoted  at  least  nine  hours  to  sightseeing, 
which  is  not  a  bad  day's  work.  One  of  the  wonders  is 
the  Blow  Hole ;  a  great  hole  on  top  of  a  mountain  out  of 


78  TRAVEL  LETTERS   FROM 

which  steam  pours  constantly,  and  with  a  great  noise. 
This  is  called  the  safety-valve  of  New  Zealand.  Sur- 
rounding it  we  found  a  number  of  empty  four-gallon 
oil  this;  cans  in  which  old  Rockefeller  had  shipped 
gasoline  to  this  country.  The  driver  of  our  carriage 
threw  these  cans  into  the  blow-hole,  and  the  steam  shot 
them  out  again.  The  noise  reminded  me  of  steam 
being  blown  out  of  a  locomotive  boiler,  hi  preparation 
for  washing  it.  There  are  no  hot  springs  or  geysers 
within  four  or  five  miles  of  the  Blow  Hole ;  it  is  a  soli- 
tary attraction,  and  the  steam  ascending  from  it  may 
be  seen  many  miles.  .  .  .  Although  the  big  ter- 
races were  covered  up  by  the  earthquake  of  1886,  we 
have  seen  two  or  three  small  and  imperfect  ones.  As 
you  walk  through  the  Wairakei  valley  you  notice  that 
the  earth  is  red,  and  green,  and  yellow,  and  white, 
and  blue  in  places.  The  guide  gave  me  a  card  on  which 
he  had  made  many  colors  with  mud ;  it  reminded  me 
of  a  painter's  color-card.  All  this  is  like  the  Yellow- 
stone, and  everything  here  is  much  like  the  geyser  fields 
in  our  greatest  national  park,  but  it  seems  to  me  that 
the  Yellowstone  is  much  superior,  in  every  way.  Fa- 
cilities for  getting  about  are  much  the  same,  and  prices 
about  the  same,  but  the  hotel  accommodations  in  the 
Yellowstone  are  undoubtedly  better.  ...  At  one 
place  in  Wairakei  valley,  steam  pours  out  of  a  number 
of  small  holes  in  the  earth.  Bottles  are  placed  beside 
the  steam  holes  in  such  a  way  that  an  incessant  whis- 
tling is  kept  up,  in  half  a  dozen  different  keys.  At  an- 
other place,  what  sounds  like  cannonading  may  be 
heard  deep  in  the  earth ;  in  another,  at  the  bottom  of  a 
lake,  you  may  hear  what  sounds  like  a  blacksmith  ham- 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.  79 

mering  on  an  anvil.  As  you  walk  along,  the  earth 
sounds  hollow  to  the  tread,  and  every  little  while  there 
is  a  cave-in,  and  a  new  hot  spring  or  geyser  appears. 
.  .  .  I  have  spoken  several  times,  in  a  good-natured 
way,  of  the  difference  in  American  and  English  pronun- 
ciation. A  change  may  not  be  expected;  indeed,  I 
think  the  difference  is  becoming  greater  all  the  time, 
since  the  English  children  have  a  worse  pronunciation 
than  their  parents.  We  have  been  traveling  several 
days  with  a  father  and  mother  and  two  young  daugh- 
ters. The  father  and  mother  pronounce  their  words 
almost  as  we  do,  but  both  the  daughters  have  a  brogue 
that  is  the  most  pronounced  I  have  heard.  I  hope  I 
have  written  good-naturedly  of  the  differences  in  pro- 
nunciation, for  I  like  the  people  I  meet.  Most  of  the 
travelers  are  New-Zealanders  or  Australians,  but  I  can't 
tell  them  from  the  English,  except  that  the  New-Zea- 
landers and  Australians  frequently  criticise  the  Eng- 
lish to  me.  They  say,  for  one  thing,  that  young  Eng- 
lishmen who  have  nothing  to  do,  come  over  here,  and 
set  a  bad  example;  that  here,  young  people  are  ex- 
pected to  work,  and  are  not  much  respected  unless  they 
do.  Many  New-Zealanders  have  told  me  that  they 
have  too  many  holidays ;  too  many  amusements.  .  .  . 
I  hear  exactly  the  same  talk  here  of  high  taxes  and 
public  extravagance  that  I  hear  at  home,  and  I  am  told 
that  politicians  are  about  as  mischievous,  active  and 
troublesome  in  New  Zealand  as  elsewhere.  At  home, 
we  hear  a  great  deal  about  the  value  of  the  single-tax 
system.  New  Zealand  has  that  system,  and  today  I 
heard  a  Wellington  lawyer  criticising  it  very  severely. 
It  is  a  single  tax  in  theory  only,  since  New  Zealand  has 


80  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

about  as  many  different  forms  of  taxation  as  any  other 
country.  New  Zealand  has  tried  more  experiments 
than  we  have,  but  gets  no  better  results  from  its  laws 
than  we  get.  It  is  attacking  the  trusts,  just  as  we  are 
doing,  and  the  trusts  continue  to  flourish;  there  are 
some  things  you  can't  do  by  law,  and  New  Zealand 
can't  accomplish  the  impossible  any  more  than  we  can. 
I  hear  that  compulsory  arbitration  worked  for  a  time, 
as  I  hear  that  a  week,  or  month,  or  year,  before  I  came, 
the  geysers  shot  three  hundred  feet  in  the  air ;  but  it 
is  positively  known  that  the  country  now  has  as  many 
and  as  ridiculous  strikes  as  any  other,  and  the  best 
geysers  have  done  only  twenty  or  thirty  feet  in  my 
presence.  The  New  Zealand  railroads  are  primitive 
compared  with  ours,  and  their  rates  higher ;  yet  they 
have  government  ownership,  which  many  Americans 
say  would  solve  the  railroad  problem.  New-Zealanders 
do  not  say  their  methods  are  better  than  ours ;  on  the 
contrary,  they  regard  the  United  States  with  a  great 
deal  of  respect,  and  know  that  we  are  far  in  the  lead. 
New-Zealanders  have  the  same  respect  for  the  United 
States  that  you  find  in  Kansas  City  for  Chicago ;  we 
are  the. Big  Boy  in  the  family  of  nations,  and  nobody 
seriously  disputes  it.  Some  foreigners  make  fun  of  us, 
because  they  are  envious,  but  the  New-Zealanders  do 
not.  .  .  .  Men  are  about  the  same  everywhere : 
the  native  who  today  drove  me  to  see  a  wonderful 
rapids  in  a  river,  said  he  knew  the  best  fishing- 
hole  in  the  entire  stream,  and  wanted  me  to  remain 
over  tomorrow,  and  go  fishing  with  him.  But  I  do 
not  intend  to  do  it;  I  have  no  confidence  in  tips — 
particularly  fishing  tips.  The  same  native,  in  show- 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.  81 

ing  us  the  rapids,  pointed  out  several  deep  caves  along 
the  rough  path  we  were  compelled  to  climb,  in  getting 
the  best  view  of  the  rapids. 

"Maybe  dead  man  in  there,"  he  said,  pointing  to 
the  deepest  of  the  caves.  "Stay  tomorrow,  and  we'll 
look." 

But  I  could  not  be  persuaded  by  this  tempting  offer, 
and  leave  tomorrow  for  a  trip  that  will  keep  me  busy 
from  6  A.  M.  until  12  p.  M.  If  anyone  is  finding  fault 
because  I  am  idle,  I  hope  that  day's  work  will  satisfy 
them. 


WEDNESDAY,  JANUARY  22. — Continuing  our  pleasure 
trip,  we  started  at  6  o'clock  this  morning,  and  traveled 
almost  continuously  until  midnight — by  stage,  boat, 
and  railroad  tram.  Our  destination  was  Taumarunui, 
and  when  we  arrived  there  at  midnight,  we  left  an  order 
with  the  hotel  clerk  to  be  called  at  5 : 30,  to  catch  a 
boat  on  the  celebrated  Waunganui  river  for  Pipiriki. 
.  .  .  The  first  stage  of  our  journey  today  was  by 
coach  to  Lake  Taupo,  seven  miles.  On  the  way,  we 
passed  several  waterfalls  and  geysers,  but  as  we  had 
been  called  at  5  o'clock,  we  were  sleepy,  and  did  not 
much  enjoy  them.  At  seven  o'clock  we  were  at  Taupo, 
where  we  took  a  boat  for  a  ride  of  twenty-six  miles 
across  the  lake.  There  were  only  five  passengers,  and 
the  pilot  read  most  of  the  three  hours,  looking  up  from 
his  book  occasionally  to  see  that  the  boat  was  going 
right.  When  we  were  out  an  hour,  he  asked  all  of  us 
if  we  were  going  on  by  stage.  We  said  we  were, 
whereupon  he  produced  a  little  cage  containing  a 


82  TRAVEL  LETTERS   FROM 

pigeon.  Writing  the  figure  "5"  on  a  thin  piece  of 
paper,  he  fastened  this  to  the  bird's  leg  by  means  of  a 
light  wire,  and  the  bird  was  released.  This  is  the 
means  used  every  day  to  notify  the  stage  people,  eigh- 
teen miles  away,  how  many  passengers  are  coming. 
The  bird  has  been  in  use  two  years,  and  never  fails. 
If  the  boat  has  a  big  load  of  passengers,  two  or  more 
stages  are  made  ready,  but  the  day  we  crossed,  one  was 
sufficient.  In  some  islands,  a  regular  carrier-pigeon 
post  is  maintained,  the  pilot  told  me.  .  .  .  We 
landed  at  a  little  Maori  village  at  10  A.  M.,  and  found  a 
five-horse  stage  waiting  for  us,  the  carrier  pigeon  hav- 
ing delivered  the  message  entrusted  to  it.  We  picked 
up  several  passengers  here,  and  when  we  started  over 
the  mountain,  the  top  of  which  showed  patches  of  snow, 
the  coach  carried  fourteen,  including  the  driver.  We 
called  at  a  house  in  the  village  and  picked  up  a  very 
fat  Maori  woman,  two  children,  and  two  men.  The 
woman  said  good-by  to  all  the  women  and  girl  children 
in  the  house  by  rubbing  her  forehead  against  theirs, 
and  considerable  time  was  required  for  this  ceremony. 
When  we  finally  started,  a  light  ram  was  falling,  which 
continued  until  7  p.  M.,  when  we  reached  the  railroad. 
Three  passengers  had  paid  extra  for  seats  with  the 
driver,  and  all  of  them  were  soaked,  while  those  of  us  on 
the  inside  were  protected.  During  the  stage  ride  from 
10  A.  M.  to  7  P.  M.,  we  passed  through  a  wild,  moun- 
tainous country,  and  saw  almost  no  houses.  We 
stopped  twice  to  change  horses,  and  both  times  the 
passengers  drank  tea  in  a  little  hut  warmed  by  a  fire 
in  one  of  the  tin  fireplaces  so  common  here.  The  tea 
was  boiled  hi  the  fireplaces  by  the  hostlers  of  the  stage 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.  83 

company,  and  we  gave  them  what  we  pleased.  I  drank 
tea  four  tunes  today :  at  breakfast,  at  noon,  in  the  after- 
noon, and  at  dinner  at  7  o'clock.  .  .  .  Wherever 
there  was  a  house,  the  people  came  out  to  see  the  stage 
go  by.  At  two  or  three  places  we  saw  pigs  of  the  Ar- 
kansas razor-back  variety ;  there  is  no  corn  here,  and 
pigs  do  not  amount  to  much.  The  passengers  were  all 
'New-Zealanders,  and  they  told  us  they  knew  we  were 
from  the  United  States  as  soon  as  they  saw  us.  They 
said  they  could  always  tell  English  and  Americans. 
And  then  we  told  them  we  knew  they  were  New-Zea- 
landers, and  not  English,  because  we  had  heard  them 
abusing  the  English.  When  you  see  a  man  who  is  ex- 
actly like  an  Englishman,  but  who  abuses  the  English, 
you  may  know  he  is  from  New  Zealand  or  Australia. 
A  woman  and  her  daughter  who  were  passengers  told 
us  New-Zealanders  always  admired  Americans;  par- 
ticularly American  women.  All  the  passengers,  ex- 
cept the  Maoris,  were  making  about  the  same  trip  we 
were  making,  and  we  had  met  several  of  them  at  differ- 
ent places,  and  become  acquainted.  In  traveling,  it 
is  almost  allowable  to  speak  to  anyone.  ...  At 
7  o'clock  in  the  evening  we  reached  the  railroad  at 
Waiora,  and  waited  an  hour  and  twenty  minutes  for  a 
train  to  Taumarunui.  This  is  the  only  night  train 
operated  in  New  Zealand,  and  connects  its  two  most 
important  cities:  Wellington  and  Auckland.  .  .  , 
It  is  a  universal  custom  at  hotels  here,  when  a  servant 
serves  you,  to  say  "Thank  you."  A  waiter  will  hand 
you  a  bill  of  fare,  and  you  indicate  that  you  will  take 
soup,  whereupon  the  waiter  says  "Thank  you."  When 
the  waiter  brings  the  soup,  you  say  "Thank  you." 


84  TRAVEL  LETTERS   FROM 

The  people  here  are  much  politer  to  servants  than 
Americans.  .  .  .  Ten  minutes  before  midnight  we 
landed  at  Taumarunui,  which  is  a  switch-engine  town ; 
I  heard  a  switch  engine  puffing  in  the  yards  nearly  all 
night.  A  town  that  has  a  railroad  switch  engine  is  a 
grade  above  the  ordinary  electric-light  town.  .  .  . 
Soon  after  we  entered  the  train  at  Waiora,  the  conductor 
entered  our  car,  and  asked:  "Anyone  from  Waiora?" 
Then  those  of  us  who  had  entered  the  train  at  that  sta- 
tion, handed  him  our  tickets.  In  America,  railway 
conductors  have  a  way  of  tagging  passengers.  I  should 
think  it  would  be  easy  here  to  steal  a  ride.  Stations 
are  not  called,  and  there  is  no  train  porter,  so  when 
we  arrived  at  Taumarunui  we  were  compelled  to  hunt 
up  the  conductor  and  ask  him  if  that  was  our  station. 


THURSDAY,  JANUARY  23. — The  Waunganui  river  is 
known  as  "the  Rhine  of  New  Zealand."  We  journeyed 
down  this  river  eleven  hours  today,  and  it  was  the  big 
event  of  our  stay  in  New  Zealand.  The  Waunganui 
river  is  a  series  of  rapids,  and  during  the  eleven  hours 
of  the  journey  we  were  always  hi  a  crooked  mountain 
gorge.  We  saw  no  farm  land,  no  settlements ;  noth- 
ing but  wild  mountain  scenery,  and 'a  rapid,  roaring 
river  sometimes  not  more  than  forty  feet  wide.  The 
boat  in  which  we  traveled  was  a  very  narrow  one ;  not 
so  wide  as  a  street  car,  but  probably  sixty  feet  long, 
and  supplied  with  powerful  engines.  In  going  down 
some  of  the  rapids  the  engines  were  stopped,  and  occa- 
sionally reversed.  The  government  has  spent  a  great 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.  85 

deal  of  money  in  improving  the  river,  and  the  only 
houses  we  saw  were  occupied  by  river  workers.  I  have 
made  a  trip  down  the  St.  Lawrence,  and  I  think  we 
passed  through  one  rapids,  which  was  thought  to  be 
remarkable;  but  today  we  passed  through  hundreds. 
And  the  boats  didn't  poke  along ;  they  ran  like  race- 
horses, and  every  minute  missed  great  rocks  by  only 
a  few  feet.  Probably  no  other  river  trip  in  the  world 
is  equal  to  this  one.  About  11  A.  M.  we  changed  to  a 
boat  of  a  little  heavier  draught,  and  about  noon  we 
stopped  at  a  houseboat  for  lunch.  This  houseboat  is  a 
complete  hotel,  and  many  people  stop  there  a  day  or 
two  in  the  journey  up  or  down — usually  down,  for  very 
few  people  make  the  slow  journey  upstream.  We  had 
forty-six  passengers,  and  this  number  packed  the  boat, 
it  was  so  small.  I  am  certain  that  every  five  minutes 
during  the  eleven-hour  journey,  we  passed  a  waterfall. 
Some  of  the  mountain  scenery  is  really  fine,  and  we 
were  twisting  and  turning  all  the  time.  We  knew 
seven  or  eight  of  the  passengers,  having  met  them  at 
various  places  during  the  present  trip.  At  6  P.  M. 
we  reached  Pipiriki,  which  consists  of  a  fine  hotel 
perched  on  top  of  a  mountain.  It  has  electric  lights 
and  modern  conveniences,  and  is  a  joy  after  some  of 
the  hotels  in  the  geyser  district.  .  .  .  Although  the 
Waunganui  is  called  the  Rhine  of  New  Zealand,  it  is 
not  at  all  like  the  Rhine  of  Germany.  It  is  not  so 
large,  and  the  country  through  which  it  passes  is  very 
much  more  rugged.  The  Rhine  is  lined  with  old  castles 
and  towns,  whereas  in  traveling  down  the  Waunganui 
all  day  you  do  not  see  a  single  town,  and  only  a  few 
cheap  houses  occupied  by  river  laborers.  .  .  .  The 


86  TRAVEL  LETTERS   FROM 

boat  on  which  we  were  passengers  had  one  very  handy 
employee.  He  handled  baggage,  and  also  served  tea 
in  the  afternoon.  When  we  stopped  for  lunch  at  the 
houseboat  he  assisted  in  waiting  on  the  tables,  and  when 
we  reached  the  hotel  at  Pipiriki  he  helped  wait  on  the 
tables.  He  also  assisted  with  the  ropes  when  the  boat 
landed,  which  it  did  a  few  times,  to  throw  mail  out  on 
the  bank  where  there  was  no  town,  no  houses,  and  no 
people  in  sight.  It  also  delivered  a  little  freight  hi  the 
same  way,  and  one  passenger  landed  at  a  lonely  place 
and  disappeared  in  the  bush. 


FRIDAY,  JANUARY  24. — We  were  aroused  at  4 :  30  this 
morning,  and  departed  at  5 : 30  to  complete  the  jour- 
ney down  the  river  to  the  railroad  and  the  sea.  The 
lower  portion  of  the  Waunganui  is  as  interesting  as  the 
upper ;  although  we  rode  in  a  larger  boat,  there  were 
as  many  rapids  today  as  yesterday — the  road  was  cov- 
ered, but  the  pilot  was  compelled  to  follow  it  as  closely 
as  a  chauffeur  follows  an  automobile  road.  One  rapids 
was  so  narrow  and  crooked  that  the  only  way  to  get 
through  was  to  trust  to  luck,  and  bump  through.  The 
captain  was  the  pilot  in  all  the  critical  places,  but  at 
least  three  other  men  seemed  to  know  -the  river,  and 
took  turns  at  the  wheel.  One  of  them  was  a  Maori 
dude,  with  fancy  clothes,  and  every  native  along  the 
way  waved  at  him.  The  pilot  was  also  the  engineer ; 
the  men  down  below  had  nothing  to  do  but  keep  up 
steam.  Beside  the  pilot  was  a  throttle  whereby  he 
shut  off  steam,  reversed,  went  half  speed,  or  full  speed ; 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.  87 

he  did  not  ring  bells  for  the  guidance  of  an  engineer  be- 
low, but  had  complete  control  of  the  power  himself. 
I  never  before  saw  a  steamboat  so  rigged.  .  .  .  Two 
or  three  hours  after  leaving  Pipiriki,  we  began  to  see 
evidences  of  civilization;  including  a  cemetery.  For 
several  days  we  had  been  in  the  wilds  where  a  cemetery 
was  not  seen.  The  river  still  ran  through  mountains, 
but  we  stopped  frequently,  and  took  on  mail  and  pas- 
sengers. At  some  places  the  boat  ran  its  nose  into  the 
bank  for  a  moment,  a  deck  hand  jumped  to  the  shore 
and  grabbed  a  mail  sack  hanging  on  a  stick,  and  then 
we  backed  into  the  stream.  At  other  places  we  stopped 
at  villages,  and  took  on  wool,  fruit,  passengers,  and 
sheep-dogs.  A  good  sheep-dog  is  worth  $50  in  New 
Zealand.  At  some  of  these  places  passengers  on  the 
boat  would  call  out  to  men  ashore  and  ask  them :  "Got 
your  wool  out  yet  ?  "  At  one  lonely  place  several  native 
women  came  aboard,  and  they  said  good-by  to  dozens 
of  women  at  the  landing  in  the  peculiar  Maori  way. 
When  we  pulled  out  we  saw  those  on  shore  riding  up 
the  hills,  on  horseback,  followed  by  a  lot  of  dogs. 
There  were  many  native  passengers,  and  they  occupied 
one  section  of  the  boat;  whether  this  was  a  sort  of 
"Jim  Crow"  arrangement,  or  whether  the  natives  pre- 
ferred being  together,  I  do  not  know.  At  breakfast  I 
did  not  see  any  of  the  natives  at  the  tables.  .  .  . 
We  passed  a  boat  coming  up,  and  our  captain  called  out 
to  the  pilot:  " Water  twenty-one,  Jake ;  look  out  for 
Wintoni  shoal."  We  passed  the  boat  on  the  left,  in- 
stead of  on  the  right,  which  is  the  custom  with  all 
traffic  here.  It  was  cold  on  the  river  early  in  the 
morning,  and  we  hugged  the  smokestack,  but  by  ten 


88  TRAVEL  LETTERS   FROM 

o'clock  the  weather  was  quite  warm.  .  .  .  There 
were  several  very  small  men  on  board;  race-riders. 
They  seemed  to  have  been  making  the  tour  of  the  gey- 
ser district,  and  I  judged  they  were  on  their  way  to 
Wellington,  where  there  will  be  racing  next  week.  Peo- 
ple living  in  the  United  States  cannot  realize  how  pop- 
ular horse-racing  is  out  here.  Nor  can  they  realize 
how  popular  the  tea-drinking  habit  is.  Every  rail- 
road train  stops  at  frequent  intervals,  to  afford  the 
passengers  opportunity  to  drink  tea.  At  the  hotels, 
when  the  maids  bring  us  tea  early  in  the  morning,  and 
we  do  not  take  it,  you  cannot  imagine  how  astonished 
they  look.  .  .  .  Another  impressive  thing  in  this 
country  is  the  fact  that  all  the  people  are  very  polite. 
I  haven't  seen  a  rude  person  since  arriving  in  New 
Zealand,  and,  in  addition,  they  are  all  well-dressed  and 
prosperous-looking.  I  have  met  one  drunken  man,  but 
he  was  polite  hi  spite  of  the  load  he  carried.  .  .  . 
On  a  boat  a  few  days  ago  we  met  a  bride  and  groom, 
and  have  been  traveling  with  them  since.  They  had 
with  them  every  day  a  little  newspaper,  printed  hi  a 
town  of  which  I  had  never  heard,  and,  as  I  saw  them 
consulting  it  frequently,  I  knew  it  contained  their 
wedding  notice.  I  managed  to  get  hold  of  the  paper 
this  morning,  while  they  were  at  breakfast,  and  read 
the  notice.  It  was  the  usual  thing.  A  Miss  Ruth 
Simpson  played  the  wedding  march ;  there  were  flower 
girls,  a  wedding  breakfast,  etc. ;  the  bride  was  one  of 
our  most  amiable  young  ladies,  and  the  groom  one  of 
our  most  promising  young  business  men;  the  bride 
threw  her  bouquet,  and  it  was  caught  by  one  of  her 
bridesmaids:  I  greatly  enjoyed  reading  the  wedding 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.  89 

notice  of  our  friends,  whom  we  had  come  to  know  very 
well,  and  who  were  very  nice.  It's  the  same  old  thing 
all  the  world  over.  .  .  .  At  11  A.  M.  we  passed  out 
of  the  rapids,  and  the  river  became  broader.  At  noon 
we  came  to  Waunganui,  a  town  of  fourteen  thousand. 
Here  we  took  a  train  for  Wellington.  The  train  was 
packed,  and  I  hate  a  crowd.  The  farming  country 
between  Waunganui  and  Wellington  is  probably  as 
good  as  there  is  in  New  Zealand,  which  isn't  saying 
much.  Every  three  or  four  miles  we  saw  a  field  of  oats 
or  turnips.  In  between,  we  saw  sheep  in  hilly  pastures. 
There  are  more  sheep  here  than  I  ever  dreamed  of; 
and  I  doubt  if  there  is  a  black  sheep  in  New  Zealand : 
anyway,  I  haven't  seen  one.  .  .  .  On  the  train 
was  a  father  who  could  take  care  of  a  baby,  but  the 
mother  was  perfectly  helpless  with  it.  ...  The 
dining-car  on  the  train  is  run  by  the  government,  and 
no  doubt  the  waiters  take  civil-service  examinations. 
When  we  reached  the  dining-car  there  was  almost 
nothing  left,  owing  to  the  crowd,  but  the  waiter  said 
he  could  get  us  a  chop.  Here,  mutton  chops  are  as 
common  as  bacon  or  ham  in  the  United  States.  .  .  . 
At  7 : 20  P.  M.  we  arrived  in  Wellington,  after  passing 
through  a  number  of  tunnels,  and  stopping  at  many 
seaside  resorts.  We  went  to  the  Grand  Hotel,  the  best 
we  have  encountered  since  leaving  San  Francisco. 
Early  tomorrow  we  shall  call  on  Thos.  Cook  &  Son, 
tourist  agents,  and  see  what  they  desire  us  to  do  next. 


90  TRAVEL  LETTERS   FROM 

SATURDAY,  JANUARY  25. — The  first  thing  we  do  when 
we  reach  a  strange  town  is  to  walk  around  and  look 
at  it,  after  being  comfortably  settled  hi  a  hotel.  Later, 
we  hire  a  messenger  boy,  as  guide,  and  go  riding.  We 
like  Wellington  better  than  we  liked  Auckland,  and  we 
were  in  love  with  that  town.  The  Grand  Hotel  is 
really  excellent,  yet  the  price  is  only  $3.12  a  day,  which 
includes  three  regular  meals,  supper  at  9  P.  M.,  early 
morning  tea,  afternoon  tea,  and  room.  The  house  has 
a  good  elevator  service,  electric  lights,  and  plenty  of 
baths.  My  room  looks  out  on  the  main  street  of  Wel- 
lington, and  has  a  little  stone  balcony  in  front.  Across 
the  street  is  the  barroom  of  the  Empire  Hotel,  with  two 
lady  bartenders.  I  amuse  myself  watching  them. 
They  are  stylishly  dressed,  and  it  is  funny  to  see  them 
step  up  to  the  bar  and  ask  a  man  what  he  will  have. 
.  .  .  We  swing  along  the  streets  in  comfortable 
fashion,  and  hope  that  drinking  tea  four  times  a  day 
causes  us  to  look  Colonial,  if  not  English,  but  when 
we  step  into  a  store  and  ask  a  price,  the  clerk  replies, 
"  Ten  and  six ;  that  is,  two  dollars  and  sixty-two  cents." 
Which  causes  us  to  realize  that  our  gait,  our  manner,  our 
clothes  and  our  talk  are  still  plainly  marked :  "Amer- 
ican." We  went  into  a  dry-goods  store  this  morning, 
and  Adelaide  bought  a  pair  of  gloves.  The  price  was 
three  and  six  (about  half  the  price  we  would  have  paid 
at  home),  and  I  gave  the  clerk  what  I  thought  was  the 
exact  change.  As  I  walked  out,  I  was  thinking  the 
English  system  of  money  is  easy  to  learn.  When  we 
were  in  the  street,  a  girl  came  running  after  us  with  a 
shilling  change.  .  .  .  Railroad  trams  run  through 
one  of  the  busiest  streets  of  Wellington,  and  this  morn- 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.  91 

ing  we  saw  a  train  start  for  the  races.  It  consisted 
of  half  a  dozen  passenger  coaches,  and  twelve  flat  cars 
provided  with  board  seats.  One  of  the  passenger  cars 
was  a  sleeper.  This  is  the  capital  of  the  country. 
Think  of  the  government  owning  the  railways  in  the 
United  States,  and,  in  Washington,  D.  C.,  compelling 
the  people  to  ride  on  flat  cars.  I  imagine  that  "Tax 
Payer,"  and  "  Citizen,"  to  say  nothing  of  "  Old  Soldier," 
and  "Vox  Populi,"  would  write  stinging  letters  to  the 
newspapers.  .  .  .  There  is  a  paper  printed  here 
called  "Truth,"  and  I  venture  the  opinion  that  it  is 
the  biggest  liar  in  the  Dominion.  The  last  issue  has 
a  leader  entitled  "Christ — Caesar — Napoleon."  Under 
such  a  title  a  writer  might  lie  abominably.  ...  In 
Australia,  a  Mr.  Beeby  was  recently  elected  to  the  legis- 
lative assembly  against  the  wishes  of  the  labor  unions. 
Mr.  Beeby  challenged  the  right  of  the  labor  unions  to 
order  his  every  political  act,  and  become  the  keeper 
of  his  conscience.  So  he  appealed  to  the  people,  and 
told  the  labor  men  to  go  to  the  devil.  They  made  a 
tremendous  fight  against  Mr.  Beeby,  and  said  he  was 
trying  to  take  bread  out  of  the  mouths  of  starving 
people,  etc.,  although  he  was  really  a  very  fair  and 
sensible  friend  of  the  working  class.  The  result  was 
a  surprise ;  Mr.  Beeby  won,  although  by  a  small  ma- 
jority. The  Wellington  Times  of  this  morning,  speak- 
ing of  Mr.  Beeby's  success,  says : 

"There  is  a  good  deal  of  hostility  to  the  labor  ele- 
ment, because  of  its  disregard  of  the  best  traditions  of 
constitutional  government." 

It  was  a  fair  and  square  fight  between  conservative 
people  and  the  labor  unions,  and  the  people  won. 


92  TRAVEL  LETTERS   FROM 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  the  same  sentiment  everywhere 
in  New  Zealand  and  Australia ;  the  people  believe  the 
labor  unions  have  become  more  exacting  than  circum- 
stances warrant,  and  that  some  day,  somewhere,  the 
limit  will  be  reached.  .  .  .  This  has  been  a  very 
enjoyable  day,  because  there  are  no  sights  to  see. 
Fortunately  Thos.  Cook  &  Son  didn't  want  us  to  go  to 
the  South  Islands  to  see  the  glaciers;  they  say  we 
haven't  time.  We  have  walked  about  in  a  leisurely 
way  today,  and,  living  far  from  the  sea,  the  docks  at- 
tract us  everywhere.  This  afternoon  we  engaged  in 
conversation  with  an  officer  of  a  ship  sailing  to  London 
by  way  of  South  America,  and  he  took  us  all  over  it. 
He  said  sea  travel  is  safer  now  than  ever  before,  be- 
cause of  the  "Titanic"  disaster;  that  every  seaman 
is  more  careful.  .  .  .  Last  night,  two  bands  went 
by  the  hotel.  The  players  were  neatly  uniformed, 
and  there  were  at  least  sixty  men  in  the  two  organi- 
zations. They  were  Mission  bands ;  the  Mission  is  a 
rival  of  the  Salvation  Army,  but  a  little  quieter  in  its 
methods.  The  Salvation  Army  also  has  a  large  band 
here,  and  both  play  in  the  streets  every  evening.  The 
papers  give  advance  notice  of  the  location  of  the  con- 
certs, and  large  crowds  gather  to  hear  the  music.  The 
bands  are  very  creditable ;  nothing  amateurish  about 
them.  .  .  .  The  men  who  work  in  the  slaughter- 
houses here  are  on  strike,  and  the  papers  of  this  morn- 
ing say  that  the  Farmers'  Union  has  adopted  resolu- 
tions condemning  the  slaughter-house  employees  for 
failure  to  accept  arbitration.  ...  In  this  country, 
when  a  newspaper  prints  a  telegram,  it  prints  the  day 
and  hour  the  telegram  was  received,  as  a  guarantee  that 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.  93 

it  was  received  by  wire.  If  an  editor  prints  a  faked 
telegram,  he  is  liable  to  fine  and  imprisonment.  The 
idea  isn't  a  bad  one.  The  government  has  lately 
ordered  an  investigation  of  the  wireless  telegraph  busi- 
ness. The  people  desire  to  know  just  what  is  actually 
being  accomplished  by  wireless.  I  shall  watch  the  in- 
vestigation with  interest ;  I  should  like  to  know,  too. 
.  .  .  Tomatoes  are  generally  sold  here  at  fruit  stores. 
Which  revives  the  old  conundrum:  "Is  the  tomato  a 
fruit  or  vegetable?"  .  .  .  A  place  in  Wellington  is 
known  as  "The  American  Lounge."  It  is  a  soda- 
water  place,  and  this  sign  appears  in  the  window : 
"  Coca-Cola ;  something  entirely  new  in  New  Zealand." 
The  soda  fountain  is  a  small  one-spout  affair  that  a 
suburban  grocer  hi  America  would  not  tolerate.  .  .  . 
In  one  of  the  suburbs,  this  afternoon,  children  followed 
us,  as  though  we  were  Chinese.  "They  are  American 
people,"  the  children  said,  apparently  not  knowing 
that  we  could  understand  what  they  said.  An  old 
gentleman  reprimanded  the  children,  and  apologized 
for  their  conduct.  .  .  .  The  race  track  is  twenty 
miles  from  Wellington,  as  there  is  not  enough  level 
land  hi  the  vicinity  to  accommodate  a  mile  track,  and 
most  of  the  people  are  out  there  this  afternoon.  We 
were  walking  hi  the  wholesale  district  at  3  P.  M.,  and, 
looking  hi  every  direction,  were  able  to  see  only  five 
people;  and  they  were  hurrying  to  the  railroad  sta- 
tion. Wellington  is  very  hilly,  and  mountains  are 
only  a  stone's-throw  from  its  mam  streets.  .  .  . 
Yesterday  a  man  named  James  Cole  brought  an  action 
against  his  wife,  Fanny,  because  she  failed  to  properly 
support  him.  Cole  said  he  was  unable  to  work  be- 


94  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

cause  of  an  accident,  whereas  his  wife  had  a  profitable 
fish-supper  business.  Counsel  asked  Cole : 

"How  high  are  you  able  to  lift  your  arm  since  the 
accident  which  you  say  disabled  you?" 

Applicant  lifted  his  arm  nearly  up  to  his  shoulder. 

"How  far  could  you  lift  it  before  the  accident?" 
counsel  for  Mrs.  Cole  asked. 

"Oh,  up  to  here,"  Mr.  Cole  replied,  holding  the  arm 
high  over  his  head.  Whereupon  the  magistrate  dis- 
missed the  case.  All  of  which  appears  hi  the  Welling- 
ton Times  of  this  morning ;  in  the  local  news,  and  not 
in  the  joke  department.  .  .  .  We  have  a  mandolin 
orchestra  at  this  hotel,  and  the  leader  is  an  old  gentle- 
man who  looks  like  a  member  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
the  United  States  whose  picture  I  have  often  seen,  but 
whose  name  I  have  forgotten.  He  plays  to  the  lady 
guests  as  the  first  violinist  does  in  a  Paris  cafe",  and  is 
altogether. a  very  interesting  character. 


SUNDAY,  JANUARY  26. — Australia  has  nothing  to 
show  tourists  except  a  few  caves;  New  Zealand  has 
the  geyser  district,  and  a  glacier  or  two,  but  there  is 
nothing  of  predominant  interest  in  either  country,  as 
you  will  find  in  Egypt,  or  India,  and  hi  many  other 
countries.  The  natives  here  are  not  interesting ;  they 
remind  you  a  good  deal  of  country-town  negroes  in 
the  United  States,  although  in  a  way  they  are  superior 
to  the  negroes,  and  superior  to  our  Indians.  After 
the  Marois  have  seen  the  stage,  the  boat  or  the  railroad 
train  go  by,  they  have  apparently  completed  their  work 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.  95 

for  the  day.  In  the  old  countries,  the  tourists  are  in- 
teresting ;  but  there  are  few  tourists  here :  we  have  seen 
only  New-Zealanders  and  Australians  out  for  a  holi- 
day. Of  brides  and  grooms  we  have  seen  hundreds; 
if  a  woman  never  gets  another  one,  she  usually  gets  a 
trip  when  she  is  married.  We  have  seen  a  few  English- 
men, but  they  are  usually  here  looking  for  opportunity 
to  make  money,  not  to  spend  it.  ...  Wherever 
I  have  seen  natives  I  have  detected  a  peculiar  odor. 
An  Auckland  woman  with  whom  we  traveled  in  the 
mountains,  says  the  odor  comes  from  dried  shark-meat, 
which  the  natives  are  always  eating.  .  .  .  Last 
night,  while  looking  out  of  my  window  at  the  lady  bar- 
tenders in  the  Empire  Hotel,  directly  across  the  street, 
a  negro  man  went  by.  He  is  the  only  negro  I  have 
seen  since  leaving  home.  He  was  well  dressed,  and 
seemed  to  be  prosperous.  .  .  .  The  streets  are 
somewhat  narrow  in  Wellington,  and  the  Empire  Hotel, 
across  the  way,  greatly  interests  me;  I  am  more  fa- 
miliar with  its  guests  than  with  the  guests  of  the  Grand. 
And  as  soon  as  darkness  sets  in,  I  can  see  the  lady  bar- 
tenders ;  the  electric  lights  in  the  barroom  render  their 
every  act  visible.  To  me  it  is  indescribably  funny  to 
see  a  woman  working  on  the  inside  of  a  bar.  Last 
night  a  patron  gave  one  of  the  two  a  bouquet  of  flowers, 
and  she  handled  it  as  gracefully  as  a  society  queen. 
.  .  .  In  the  United  States,  a  hotel  or  restaurant 
waiter  looks  almost  as  tough  as  a  hackdriver,  but  here 
they  are  fine-appearing  men.  Many  of  them  are  el- 
derly ;  they  seem  to  have  spent  their  lives  as  waiters. 
The  man  who  waits  on  us  in  the  dining-room  of  the 
Grand  might  be  a  congressman,  so  far  as  looks  go,  and 


96  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

I  have  never  before  known  an  equally  capable  man  of 
his  calling.  How  the  Grand  affords  it  all  at  three  dol- 
lars a  day,  I  cannot  understand.  The  price  is  12  and 
6,  which  appears  to  be  $3.12  in  our  money,  but  it  is 
really  $3,  since  a  shilling  is  worth  only  twenty-four 
cents.  The  Grand  is  the  best  hotel  in  Wellington,  and 
probably  in  the  Dominion.  Wellington  is  full  of  hotels, 
and  probably  the  competition  is  so  strong  that  the 
Grand  is  compelled  to  keep  its  prices  down.  .  .  . 
New  Zealand  pays  a  good  deal  of  attention  to  tourists, 
and  the  government  extensively  advertises  the  hot 
lakes  and  the  glaciers ;  it  also  has  a  bureau  for  selling 
travelers  tickets,  and  owns  resorts,  boat  lines,  etc. 
But  it  pays  little  attention  to  immigration,  as  Aus- 
tralia does.  Australia  does  much  more  for  immigrants 
than  the  United  States,  giving  them  cheap  fares  to  the 
country,  reduced  freight  rates,  etc.,  and  when  they  ar- 
rive, special  attention  is  paid  them  by  a  government 
department  created  for  that  purpose.  The  United 
States  gets  more  immigrants  than  any  other  country, 
without  inducements  of  any  kind  on  the  part  of  the 
government :  news  of  the  country  paying  the  best 
wages,  and  offering  the  best  inducements,  will  find  its 
way  everywhere.  .  .  .  Wirth's  Greatest  Show  on 
Earth  is  billed  here.  One  of  its  stars  is  Hillary  Long, 
"the  talk  of  America,"  although  I  do  not"  remember 
to  have  heard  of  him  there.  Another  of  Wirth's  stars 
is  Young  Buffalo  Bill,  who  competes  with  Australian 
cowboys  in  mastering  wild  horses  and  cattle.  .  .  . 
The  offices  of  the  New  Zealand  government  are  housed 
in  what  is  said  to  be  the  largest  wooden  building  in  the 
world.  Wellington  has  many  fine  structures  of  stone, 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.  97 

but  the  government  buildings  were  constructed  years 
ago,  and  are  mainly  of  wood.  .  .  .  This  is  as  sleepy 
a  town  on  Sunday  as  I  have  ever  visited.  This  morn- 
ing we  went  down  to  breakfast  at  8 :  30,  and  dined  alone. 
At  noon,  the  maid  had  not  yet  cleaned  up  our  rooms. 
But  it  is  just  as  bad  across  the  street,  at  the  Empire 
Hotel,  into  the  rooms  of  which  I  can  look.  The  beds 
were  not  made  there  at  noon,  either;  indeed,  in  one 
room  a  man  was  still  in  bed.  The  lady  bartenders  at 
the  Empire  are  not  on  duty  today ;  the  blinds  are  down 
in  the  bar,  and  the  lady  bartenders  are  probably  pat- 
ronizing some  of  the  numerous  excursions  we  saw  ad- 
vertised in  the  morning  papers.  The  day  is  not  only 
Sunday,  but  rain  began  falling  in  the  afternoon,  and 
we  had  no  other  amusement  than  watching  the  bored 
guests  at  the  Empire.  .  .  .  The  maid  came  in  at  2 
p.  M.  to  clean  up  my  room,  and  a  fine  lot  of  gossip  she 
brought.  She  says  that  one  of  the  girls  employed  in 
the  office  of  the  Grand  died  last  night,  and  that  the 
hotel  force  is  demoralized.  The  girl's  body  was  taken 
to  the  morgue  this  morning,  and  the  maid  thinks  the 
papers  will  be  full  of  it  in  the  morning.  When  a  man 
dies,  it  seems  to  be  regular,  but  when  a  woman  dies 
there  is  a  chance  for  suspicion,  particularly  if  she  has 
been  to  Sydney  three  months  before  on  a  vacation. 
The  maid  also  says  that  the  lady  bartenders  at  the  Em- 
pire, across  the  street,  kiss  their  customers.  Lady 
bartenders,  as  a  class,  according  to  the  maid,  do  not 
stand  very  high  socially,  a  statement  I  can  easily  ac- 
cept. .  .  .  The  maid  says  an  American  stopped 
at  the  Grand  several  months  ago,  and  every  time  he 
met  her,  he  said :  "Go  to  h — 1."  I  did  not  recognize 


98  TRAVEL  LETTERS   FROM 

this  as  an  American  trait :  to  tell  ladies,  without  provo- 
cation, to  go  to  h — 1.  ...  In  New  Zealand  or 
Asutralia  (or  in  England,  for  that  matter)  the  first 
thing  an  American  notices  is  the  queer  pronunciation 
of  words  by  the  residents.  I  have  mentioned  this  be- 
fore, but  mention  it  again  because  I  have  just  come 
across  this  statement  by  Rudyard  Kipling : 

"The  American  I  have  heard  up  to  the  present  is  a 
tongue  as  distinct  from  English  as  Patagonian." 

From  which  I  imagine  that  our  pronunciations  also 
jar  on  English  ears.  I  believe  I  can  take  their  own  dic- 
tionary, and  convince  the  English  that  they  do  not 
obey  its  rules  of  pronunciation.  There  is  not  the 
slightest  authority  in  any  English  dictionary  for  many 
of  their  pronunciations.  The  pronunciation  of  the 
English  people  is  arbitrary ;  there  is  no  authority  for 
much  of  it,  as  there  is  no  authority  for  the  cockney 
dialect.  At  one  place  on  this  trip  we  met  two 
old -maid  high -school  teachers,  and  they  almost 
spoke  good  English.  And  this  is  a  rule  that  may  be 
depended  upon :  the  educated  English  have  a  better 
pronunciation  than  the  uneducated.  The  pronunci- 
ation of  Americans  is  nearly  always  the  same,  but  the 
English  do  not  themselves  use  the  same  pronunciations. 
Perhaps  it  is  an  intonation  or  quality  of  the  voice,  or  an 
inflection,  but  it  is  a  fact  that  frequently  an  American 
understands  them  with  difficulty.  For  several  days 
we  traveled  with  an  English  barrister,  a  very  polite 
gentleman,  and  we  frequently  sat  with  him  at  hotel, 
steamboat  and  dining-car  tables.  Half  the  time  we 
could  not  understand  him.  And  he  found  equal  diffi- 
culty in  understanding  us,  unless  we  spoke  slowly  and 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.  99 

distinctly.  Kipling  says  the  American  language  has 
nothing  hi  common  with  English  except  the  auxiliary 
verbs,  the  name  of  the  Creator,  and  damn. 


MONDAY,  JANUARY  27. — Although  New  Zealand  is 
supposed  to  be  an  English  colony,  there  are  no  English 
soldiers  here.  A  few  soldiers  are  seen  in  Wellington, 
but  they  belong  to  New  Zealand  regiments.  The  young 
man  who  showed  us  about  today  is  seventeen  years  old, 
and  what  we  would  call  an  A.  D.  T.  messenger  boy. 
But  the  telegraph  business  is  a  government  monopoly 
here,  and  this  young  man  is  a  government  employee. 
There  is  a  mild  system  of  compulsory  military  service. 
The  young  man  says  he  belongs  to  a  military  company 
of  postoffice  and  telegraph  employees,  and  that  they 
drill  one  hour  every  week.  All  young  men  are  com- 
pelled to  belong  to  a  similar  company,  from  fourteen 
to  twenty-five  years  of  age.  They  compose  a  mili- 
tary reserve,  and  never  go  into  actual  camp.  New 
Zealand  also  has  a  navy,  which  is  about  as  much  of  a 
joke  as  its  army.  Australia,  being  larger,  has  a  larger 
establishment,  but  the  system  is  the  same :  New  Zea- 
land, Australia  and  Tasmania  are  exactly  alike  so  far 
as  politics,  sheep,  and  labor  unions  are  concerned. 
Tasmania  is  a  little  place,  but  it  has  mighty  questions 
to  settle.  The  Tasmania  legislative  assembly  has  been 
in  a  deadlock  several  years,  and  none  of  the  big  ques- 
tions could  be  settled.  An  election  was  held  recently, 
to  break  the  deadlock ;  and  again  the  assembly  is  a  tie. 
Politically,  the  colonies  remind  one  a  little  of  Cuba, 


100  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

where  the  political  pot  boils  rather  more  steadily  than 
anywhere  else  hi  the  world.  .  .  .  The  real  event 
of  today  has  been  the  arrival  of  Dr.  Beeson,  of  Chicago, 
with  whom  we  traveled  three  weeks  on  the  "Sonoma." 
I  seem  to  have  known  him  always ;  he  is  my  dearest 
friend,  and  the  meeting  apparently  pleased  him  as 
much  as  it  did  me.  ...  In  the  celebration  fol- 
lowing my  meeting  with  Dr.  Beeson,  we  went  down 
into  the  Grand  barroom,  where  we  found  two  bars, 
exactly  alike,  on  opposite  sides  of  a  big  room.  An  old 
maid  known  as  Polly  served  us;  a  younger  woman 
called  'Arriet  presided  at  the  bar  across  the  room. 
Polly  was  very  amiable,  and  talked  to  us  about  our 
trip;  I  suppose  she  has  been  a  bartender  ever  since 
she  was  eighteen,  and  attractive,  and  that  was  a  long 
tune  ago.  It  will  surprise  you  to  know  that  she  re- 
minded me  of  a  school  teacher;  she  was  as  well-be- 
haved as  a  school  teacher,  and  had  a  bossy  way  that 
is  always  associated  in  my  mind  with  the  school-room. 
The  Doctor  and  I  talked  of  going  over  to  see  the  lady 
bartenders  at  the  Empire,  but  Polly  coaxed  us  out  of 
the  notion.  Liquor  is  sold  here  almost  entirely  by 
women;  the  custom  of  barmaids  is  more  general  hi 
New  Zealand,  I  am  told,  than  in  England.  .  .  . 
Every  morning  and  evening  I  buy  a  newspaper.  The 
news  is  mainly  from  London,  or  local ;  I  have  not  seen 
a  telegram  from  the  United  States.  Which  is  not  so 
surprising :  you  might  read  the  American  papers  a  long 
time  without  seeing  a  telegram  from  New  Zealand. 
.  .  .  Wellington  has  a  fine  street-car  system ;  con- 
siderably better  than  St.  Joseph,  Mo.,  a  city  of  about 
the  same  size.  One  line  runs  through  a  tunnel  under  a 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          101 

mountain  to  a  bathing  beach ;  another  climbs  one  of 
the  great  hills,  where  are  located  many  fine  residences. 
There  are  several  short  cable  lines  running  up  the  steep 
mountains.  In  addition  to  this  means  of  communi- 
cation, there  are  many  boats  running  around  and  across 
the  harbor,  to  bathing  beaches  and  suburbs.  Welling- 
ton is  as  fine  a  town  as  St.  Joseph,  and  the  suburbs  of 
Wellington  look  better.  The  streets  and  roads  here 
are  superior  to  those  in  the  Missouri  city,  and  I  saw  a 
grocery  store  here  today  that  St.  Joseph  cannot  equal. 
.  .  .  There  is  a  probability  of  a  strike  among  the 
cab-drivers  here.  The  drivers  are  demanding  that  pas- 
sengers handle  their  own  baggage.  The  city  has  taken 
a  hand,  and  decided  that  it  is  the  duty  of  cab-drivers 
to  place  the  baggage  of  passengers  on  their  cabs ;  where- 
upon the  Cab  Drivers'  Union  inquired,  in  a  resolution, 
"Why  should  not  passengers  handle  their  own  lug- 
gage?" A  district  delegate  has  arrived  from  Auck- 
land, and  last  night  delivered  a  fiery  speech  about  the 
starving  poor,  the  insolent  rich,  the  disposition  of  cap- 
ital to  wring  the  last  drop  of  blood  from  the  people, 
etc.,  and  it  will  be  known  in  a  day  or  two  whether  I 
shall  be  compelled  to  carry  my  own  trunks  when  I  go 
to  the  ship.  .  .  .  This  town  is  known  as  Windy 
Wellington,  because  the  wind  blows  so  steadily.  One 
story  is  that  you  may  always  tell  a  Wellington  man, 
wherever  he  may  be :  when  he  turns  a  street  corner,  he 
grabs  his  hat,  to  keep  it  from  blowing  away.  Welling- 
ton people  also  have  a  story  on  Sydney ;  they  say  that 
when  they  visit  that  city  they  pin  a  tag  on  their  coats, 
which  reads :  "I  am  much  pleased  with  your  harbor." 
Sydney  people  are  very  proud  of  their  harbor,  and 


102  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

Auckland  and  Wellington  are  very  jealous,  as  both  the 
last  named  cities  have  beautiful  harbors,  though  neither 
is  as  large  as  that  at  Sydney.  ...  A  gentleman 
who  sits  at  our  table  at  the  hotel  lived  for  six  months  at 
Lancaster,  Pennsylvania,  and  thinks  it  a  very  fine  town. 
He  lives  in  New  Zealand  now,  but  Lancaster  pleased 
him  very  much.  Chicago  scared  him;  he  was  there 
one  night,  and  the  next  morning  the  papers  reported 
six  murders.  As  soon  as  Dr.  Beeson  arrived,  Chicago 
had  a  more  capable  defender,  and  I  withdrew,  to  enjoy 
the  scrimmage.  .  .  .  Chinese  are  admitted  to  New 
Zealand  on  payment  of  $1,500  per  head,  and  a  good 
many  of  them  run  fruit  and  vegetable  stores  here.  .  .  . 
As  the  maid  predicted,  the  Monday  morning  papers 
mentioned  the  death  at  the  Grand  Hotel  Saturday 
night,  but  they  handled  the  item  very  cautiously,  say- 
ing that  the  circumstances  were  suspicious,  and  that  an 
inquest  was  necessary.  .  .  .  No  doubt  the  people 
at  the  Empire  are  much  exercised ;  unless  I  am  much 
mistaken,  the  people  of  the  Empire  are  saying :  "That 
rotten  outfit  across  the  street  is  getting  what  it  de- 
serves." You  can't  expect  anyone  to  be  fair  with  his 
rival  in  business. 


TUESDAY,  JANUARY  28. — We  took  a  long  street-car 
ride  this  morning,  and  paid  sixteen  cents  for  one  jour- 
ney which  would  have  cost  only  five  cents  in  an  Amer- 
ican city.  But  you  can  ride  a  short  distance  for  two 
cents.  The  fare  increases  two  cents  per  section. 
Whether  our  plan  of  five  cents  for  a  street-railway  ride, 
long  or  short,  is  better  or  worse  than  this,  I  do  not  know. 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          103 

There  are  no  transfers  here;  if  you  travel  on  three 
different  lines,  you  pay  three  fares.  .  .  .  Every 
morning  our  waiter  at  the  hotel  brings  us  hot  cakes, 
although  we  do  not  order  them.  We  discovered  the 
reason  today :  on  the  bill  of  fare  they  are  called  "hot 
cakes,  American  style."  It  is  the  waiter's  way  of  an- 
nouncing that  he  knows  we  are  Americans.  .  .  . 
When  you  order  soft-boiled  eggs  here,  they  are  brought 
to  you  in  the  shell,  and  you  eat  them  out  of  egg  cups. 
This  morning  I  asked  the  waiter  to  break  mine  hi  a 
glass,  which  he  did,  but  he  also  put  in  pepper  and  salt, 
and  stirred  them  up.  .  .  .  This  has  been  a  very 
chilly  day,  and  the  Wellington  people  are  going  about 
wearing  overcoats  and  straw  hats.  A  woman  on  the 
street  car  informed  us  that  today  has  been  as  cold  as 
the  weather  ever  gets  here,  at  any  season.  At  one  of 
the  beaches  we  saw  the  surf  rolling  hi  a  very  bois- 
terous and  menacing  way,  as  the  wind  was  blowing 
almost  a  gale.  But  flowers  are  hi  bloom,  and  vege- 
tables growing  in  gardens.  The  vegetable  gardens  here 
are  hi  the  hands  of  Chinese,  and  are  wonderfully  neat ; 
almost  as  wonderful  as  the  gardens  about  Paris,  where 
the  gardeners  remove  the  original  dirt,  and  make  a  new 
soil.  .  .  .  We  hear  complaints  everywhere  of  the 
labor  unions.  On  a  street  car  today  we  engaged  in 
conversation  with  an  elderly  woman  who  said  she  was 
born  in  Wellington,  and  who  complained  bitterly  of 
the  unions,  which  cause  constant  disturbances  hi  all 
branches  of  business.  This  was  surprising  to  me,  in 
New  Zealand,  where  we  have  heard  everything  is  so 
amiable.  I  hear  the  same  thing  every  tune  I  talk 
with  New  Zealand  people.  "It  is  too  much  of  a  good 


104  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

thing/'  they  say.  Possibly  it  is  like  our  tariff :  originally 
a  good  thing,  it  has  been  overdone,  and  all  of  us  are 
now  compelled  to  pay  tribute  in  the  shape  of  a  heavy 
tax.  .  .  .  When  we  began  talking  with  the  woman, 
she  said:  "I  take  it  that  you  are  Americans."  We 
always  hear  that.  .  .  .  We  have  discovered  that 
among  its  other  attractions,  the  Grand  Hotel  has  a  roof 
garden.  Even  the  Chicago  doctor  is  surprised  at  the 
excellence  of  the  hotel ;  and  the  price  is  only  S3  a  day 
each,  including  meals  and  rooms.  We  have  concluded 
that  the  necessities  of  life,  on  an  average,  are  about  one- 
quarter  cheaper  here  than  hi  the  United  States.  While 
there  are  no  great  tracts  of  farming  land  in  the  vicinity 
of  Wellington  or  Auckland,  near  Christchurch,  on  the 
other  island,  there  are  said  to  be  plains  one  hundred 
miles  long.  People  here  say  that  mutton  is  the  one 
meat  they  never  tire  of ;  and  mutton  is  very  plentiful 
and  very  cheap.  .  .  .  The  New-Zealander  who 
sits  at  our  table  is  a  very  bold  man,  to  hear  him  talk. 
I  told  him  of  my  experience  with  snoring  men,  on  the 
"Maheno,"  and  he  says  that  under  such  circumstances 
he  would  have  raised  a  row  with  the  disturbers.  But 
I  think  that  possibly  he  is  like  many  others  I  have 
known :  a  great  talker,  rather  than  a  great  hero.  He 
tells  an  amusing  story  of  a  friend  he  once  invited  to  his 
home  for  a  visit  of  a  fortnight.  The  friend  turned  out 
to  have  the  loudest  and  most  disagreeable  snore  ever 
heard  in  New  Zealand,  and  no  one  in  the  house  slept 

during  the  two  weeks  the  visitor  was  there 

The  tipping  evil  is  not  as  great  hi  New  Zealand  as  it  is 
in  many  places ;  the  servants  here  have  heard  of  the 
custom,  but  they  do  not  mob  travelers  who  fail  to  fee 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          105 

them  satisfactorily.  .  .  .  The  greatest  need  at 
present,  in  all  parts  of  the  world,  is  a  library  of  books  of 
simple  information,  simply  written.  Today  I  bought 
a  book  on  Africa,  by  Sir  H.  H.  Johnston.  The  intro- 
duction is  interesting,  but  the  remaining  hundreds  of 
pages  contain  a  lot  of  technical  information  that  no 
one  wants.  My  impression  is  that  Sir  H.  H.  Johnston 
wrote  the  introduction,  and  the  remaining  pages 
were  taken  from  old  books  on  the  subject.  Cyclo- 
pedias are  made  hi  the  same  way.  Some  time  ago  I 
read  the  confession  of  a  cyclopedia  editor.  He  says 
such  books  are  full  of  errors,  because  of  the  habit  of 
copying,  and  that  there  is  too  little  independent  in- 
vestigation. He  relates  that  as  an  editor  he  once  in- 
vented a  man,  a  "noted  clergyman,"  and  sent  a  "story" 
about  him  to  the  printers.  The  "story"  passed  the 
scrutiny  of  all  the  other  editors,  and  was  about  to  be 
made  up  into  the  pages  of  the  cyclopedia,  when  the 
joker  took  it  out.  That  is  the  way  historical  books  are 
printed;  they  are  too  long,  very  dull,  full  of  errors, 
written  in  a  ponderous  style  that  repels  readers,  and 
lacking  in  the  simplicity  and  terseness  necessary  for  the 
understanding  of  the  average  reader.  There  are  several 
"libraries"  of  "universal  knowledge,"  and  not  one  of 
them  is  half  as  good,  as  useful  or  as  entertaining  as  it 
could  have  been  made.  The  lack  in  all  these  books  is 
simplicity ;  the  professors  write  hi  fear  of  the  criticism 
of  other  professors,  and  not  for  busy  people.  In  this 
book  on  Africa,  about  all  I  found  of  interest  was  a  state- 
ment that  the  Australoid  type  of  man  is  almost  cer- 
tainly the  parent  of  the  white  man  in  Europe  and  Asia. 
The  Australoid,  represented  at  present  by  the  indige- 


106  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

nous  population  of  Australia  (a  chocolate-colored 
people,  rather  than  black)  comes  nearest  of  all  living 
men  to  the  basal  stock  of  our  race,  and  behind  him  lies 
a  long  vista  of  semi-humanity  till  apehood  is  reached. 
This  was  a  new  statement  to  me.  .  .  .  The  human 
genus  was  evolved  somewhere  in  Asia,  most  probably 
in  India,  according  to  the  best  authority.  This  was  a 
long  time  ago ;  human  remains  at  least  five  hundred 
thousand  years  old  have  been  found  in  the  Rhine  basin 
near  Heidelberg,  and  it  is  believed  the  race  is  much 
older  in  Asia.  But  the  original  man  was  a  black  man, 
or  a  yellow  man ;  the  white  man  originated  much  later, 
and,  according  to  Sir  H.  H.  Johnston,  he  originated  in 
Australia.  So  I  am  visiting  the  home  of  my  remote  an- 
cestors. While  man  is  very  old,  he  ceased  only  twenty- 
five  or  thirty  thousand  years  ago — this  is  only  a  guess 
of  scientists,  but  the  best  information  we  have — to  live 
in  an  absolutely  savage  condition  as  a  mere  hunter  of 
other  animals.  The  present  civilized  man  gradually 
developed  from  a  start  made  probably  thirty  thousand 
years  ago.  It  was  the  white  man  who  made  this  start 
toward  civilization,  and  he  originated  in  Australia,  if 
Sir  H.  H.  Johnston  knows  what  he  is  talking  about. 
The  white  man  has  always  been  an  adventurer,  and, 
in  the  course  of  ages,  spread  over  the  earth. 


WEDNESDAY,  JANUARY  29. — The  New-Zealander  who 
sits  at  our  table,  and  who  lived  awhile  at  Lancaster, 
Pa.,  said  at  breakfast  this  morning : 

"The  people  of  the  United  States  are  the  smartest 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          107 

in  the  world.  No  doubt  about  it.  In  everything 
worthy  and  desirable,  they  are  ahead  of  any  other  peo- 
ple." 

This  man  was  born  in  England,  and  lived  in  London 
many  years,  but  is  lately  living  in  New  Zealand.  He 
believes  the  "Pennsylvania  Dutch"  he  knew  at  Lancas- 
ter to  be  the  best  type  of  people  he  ever  knew,  and  re- 
grets that  all  the  people  of  the  United  States  are  not 
more  like  them.  .  .  .  This  gentleman  also  showed 
us  how  the  English  and  Scotch  eat  oatmeal  porridge. 
They  salt  it,  but  never  use  sugar.  In  the  left  hand  they 
hold  a  cup  of  milk,  and  into  this  they  dip  a  spoonful 
of  porridge  before  eating  it.  ...  It  seems  there 
was  a  blizzard  yesterday ;  the  thermometer  got  down  to 
fifty-six  above.  But  we  went  about  in  our  usual  sum- 
mer clothing,  and  did  not  know  it  was  a  blizzard  until 
this  morning's  papers  appeared.  ...  In  the 
botanical  garden,  this  morning,  I  believe  I  saw  the 
finest  display  of  flowers  I  have  ever  seen.  You  hear 
much  of  the  famous  gardens  of  Japan,  but  I  have  never 
seen  a  Japanese  garden  as  beautiful  as  that  I  saw  this 
morning.  The  Japanese  gardens  are  grotesque  rather 
than  beautiful.  On  the  way  back  to  town  we  visited 
a  big  department  store,  and  remained  an  hour,  watch- 
ing the  crowds.  Doctor  Beeson  and  I  followed  Ade- 
laide around  among  the  crowds  of  women,  and  enjoyed 
the  experience.  There  was  a  special  sale  on,  and  postal 
cards  had  been  reduced  to  a  cent  each.  The  store 
was  a  big  one,  but  not  nearly  so  large  as  the  big  ones 
in  Kansas  City.  All  the  clerks  were  girls,  and  it  was 
about  the  usual  thing  in  special  sales,  except  that  prices 
were  in  pounds,  shillings  and  pence.  ...  In  the 


108  TRAVEL  LETTERS  PROM 

public  places  here,  we  see  this  sign  very  frequently: 
"Citizens,  protect  your  own  property."  That  is, 
everything  belongs  to  the  people,  therefore  why  destroy 
anything?  Some  people  are  natural  vandals,  but  peo- 
ple of  a  little  culture  and  refinement  never  are.  .  .  . 
In  New  Zealand,  a  woman  has  no  interest  in  her  hus- 
band's real  estate.  If  a  man  desires  to  transfer  a  piece 
of  real  property  here,  his  wife's  signature  to  the  deed  is 
not  necessary,  as  is  the  case  in  the  United  States.  Still 
women  have  full  suffrage  in  New  Zealand.  .  .  . 
Not  only  the  talk  is  unintelligible  here  at  times,  but  I 
see  advertisements  in  the  English  newspapers  I  can't 
understand.  Here  is  an  exact  copy  of  an  advertise- 
ment in  the  Wellington  Post  of  this  date : 

WANTED— A  General.     Apply  Mrs.  Focke,  210  The  Terrace. 

If  you  know  what  Mrs.  Focke  wants,  you  know  more 
than  I  do.  Here  is  another  advertisement  from  the 
same  newspaper : 

FOR  SALE — Butchery  business ;  going  concern  ;  average  weekly  killing, 
6  bodies  and  30  small.  Victor  E.  Smith,  Box  59,  Fielding. 

I  haven't  the  remotest  notion  what  the  advertise- 
ment means.  .  .  .  The  newspapers  here,  of  course, 
have  taken  after  the  street  railway  company.  They 
demand  a  universal  fare  of  two  cents,  instead  of  two 
cents  a  section.  It  seems  impossible  to  run  a  newspaper 
anywhere  without  abusing  the  street  railway.  One 
correspondent  of  The  Post  says  the  street  car  company 
is  entitled  to  take  in  only  enough  to  pay  actual  running 
expenses,  as  the  increasing  value  of  the  property  is 
profit  enough.  ...  At  luncheon  today,  our  waiter 
at  the  Grand  Hotel  brought  me  an  extra  dish.  "Ameri- 
can pork  and  beans,"  he  announced  triumphantly. 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          109 

They  never  let  me  forget  for  a  moment  that  I  am  an 
American,  or  that  they  have  caught  me  at  it.  ... 
The  dry-goods  men  here  are  as  big  talkers  as  they  are 
anywhere.  In  The  Post  of  this  afternoon,  James 
Smith,  Limited,  offers  a  special  sale  in  summer  goods. 
Here  is  one  price  he  quotes : 

"  Ladies'  one-piece  washing  frocks,  in  various  colors,  good  value  at  18s.  6d. ; 
carry  your  choice  away  tomorrow  at  5*.  lid. 

It  seems  that  any  sane  woman  would  know  that  an 
article  now  offered  at  5s.  lid.  (or  $1.42)  was  never  good 
value  at  18s.  6d.  (or  $4.62).  If  James  Smith  ever  sold 
an  article  at  $4.62  and  has  now  cut  it  to  $1.42,  he  is  a 
robber,  and  no  woman  should  patronize  him.  Yet 
his  store  will  be  crowded  with  women  tomorrow,  and 
many  of  them  will  buy  dry  goods  they  do  not  need, 
at  prices  that  afford  James  Smith,  Limited,  a  fair 
profit.  The  manner  in  which  smart  merchants  fool 
the  women  with  special  sales  should  receive  attention 
at  the  next  meeting  of  Congress.  .  .  .  Bob  Fitz- 
simmons,  the  prize-fighter,  came  from  New  Zealand, 
and  I  think  he  is  rather  more  popular  at  home  than 
Melba  is  in  Australia,  where  she  was  born.  Indeed,  I 
have  heard  Melba  "picked  at"  a  good  deal,  while  Fitz 
is  generally  pointed  to  with  pride. 


THURSDAY,  JANUARY  30. — A  hair-cut  and  shave  at  the 
best  shop  hi  Wellington  costs  twenty-four  cents.  If 
a  man  buys  a  ticket,  and  pays  in  advance,  for  $1.50  he 
can  get  a  shave  every  morning  for  a  month,  and  one 
hair-cut.  ...  On  my  way  to  the  barber's  this 


110  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

morning  I  saw  this  sign:  "Mrs.  Jew,  private  hotel." 
Here  is  another  sign  I  saw:  "Jerusalem  &  Son,  jew- 
elers and  New  Zealand  green-stone  merchants."  While 
waiting  hi  the  barber  shop  I  saw  this  advertisement 
in  a  newspaper:  "Wanted — A  Rabbiter;  also  a  saw 
doctor.  Apply  to  F.  P.  Welch,  Masterton."  .  .  . 
My  friend  who  lived  for  a  time  in  Lancaster,  Pa.,  and 
who  so  greatly  admires  the  "Pennsylvania  Dutch," 
told  of  a  funny  experience  this  morning.  When  he 
first  landed  hi  the  United  States  he  went  into  a  barber 
shop,  to  be  shaved.  The  barber  asked  him  if  he  wanted 
a  shampoo.  The  New-Zealander,  thinking  that  this 
was  merely  a  politeness,  said  he  did.  Then  the  barber 
asked  him  if  he  would  have  a  face  massage,  and  the 
New-Zealander  accepted  that  offer,  as  well  as  several 
others,  all  the  while  thinking  of  the  politeness  of  the 
American  barbers.  Finally,  when  the  barber  pre- 
sented his  bill  for  $2.90,  there  was  a  row,  and  the  New- 
Zealander  denounced  us  all  as  robbers.  .  .  .  This 
New-Zealander,  whom  I  shall  call  Mr.  A.,  was  very 
indignant  when  I  told  him  about  the  snoring  man  on 
the  ship,  and  has  been  telling  ever  since  what  should 
be  done  to  a  man  who  travels  about  to  disturb  his  fel- 
low-men. "A  man  who  snores,"  said  Mr.  A.,  "should 
remain  at  home."  Mr.  A.  is  a  nervous  man  himself, 
and  believes  that  a  snoring  man  should  in  some  way 
be  prohibited.  I  noticed  that  Dr.  Beeson,  my  friend 
from  Chicago,  did  not  fully  accept  Mr.  A.'s  opinion, 
and,  when  we  are  alone,  the  Doctor  is  disposed  to  rake 
Mr.  A.  over  the  coals.  This  has  convinced  me  that 
the  Doctor  is  a  snoring  man,  so  at  nearly  every  meal  I 
induce  Mr.  A.  to  abuse  the  man  who  is  so  impolite  as 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          Ill 

to  go  to  bed  in  a  room  with  two  others  and  snore  all 
night.  The  Doctor  and  Mr.  A.  were  at  first  quite 
friendly,  but  lately  they  quarrel  most  of  the  time. 
"That  man,"  the  Doctor  said  to  me  today,  and  re- 
ferring to  Mr.  A.,  "is  getting  on  my  nerves."  The 
Doctor  frequently  comes  up  to  my  room  to  smoke  a 
cigar,  and  sometimes  I  send  out  for  a  second  cigar,  that 
I  may  enjoy  the  aroma  of  the  tobacco,  but  this  is  the 
only  weak  thing  I  do,  so  far  as  my  resolution  to  quit 
tobacco  is  concerned.  I  no  longer  temporize;  I  do 
not  chew  toothpicks,  or  gum,  or  plug  tobacco ;  I  have 
quit  off  short,  and  find  it  easier.  If  you  are  trying  to 
quit  tobacco,  quit  entirely,  and  do  not  aggravate  your- 
self with  cardamon  seed,  cloves,  no-tobac,  or  anything 
else.  ...  I  am  going  away  tomorrow,  but  Mr. 
A.  and  the  Doctor  will  remain  another  week,  and  after 
I  am  gone,  and  no  longer  able  to  keep  them  apart,  I 
expect  them  to  have  a  fight,  about  snoring.  .  .  . 
The  Doctor  is  going  home  by  way  of  South  America 
direct,  and  will  round  Cape  Horn.  He  said  last  even- 
ing, while  smoking  in  my  room:  "Well,  I  now  have 
absolutely  nothing  to  do  for  forty-eight  days,  except 
to  send  one  cablegram  at  Buenos  Aires."  His  state- 
ment was  a  very  good  illustration  of  the  idleness  of 
travelers.  He  does  not  like  traveling  by  sea,  but  says 
it  does  him  good,  although  he  does  not  observe  the  good 
effect  until  he  has  been  at  home  some  tune.  He  will 
be  nineteen  days  at  sea,  without  sight  of  land ;  an  ex- 
perience I  will  have  between  Australia  and  South 
Africa.  .  .  .  An  Englishman  I  met  here  today  was 
laughing  at  Americans  because  they  call  one  horse  a 
"team."  He  was  also  amused  because  Americans  eat 


112  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

pie  in  the  middle  of  a  meal.  That  is  the  way  many  of 
the  stories  about  Americans  originate :  they  are  made 
up.  I  have  lived  in  America  considerably  more  than 
half  a  century,  and  never  knew  anyone  to  refer  to  one 
horse  as  a  "team,"  or  eat  pie  hi  the  middle  of  a  meal. 
.  .  .  There  is  a  young  man  staying  at  this  hotel 
who  doesn't  seem  to  know  much.  "I  don't  believe," 
said  Mr.  A.  today,  "that  he  is  a  full  shilling."  Mean- 
ing, "I  don't  believe  he  has  good  sense."  This  young 
fellow  is  a  "remittance  man;"  he  has  a  rich  father  hi 
England,  and  receives  a  remittance  every  month — he 
is  kept  in  New  Zealand  in  the  hope  that  he  will  get 
killed,  or  drink  himself  to  death.  .  .  .  The  officers 
of  small  ships,  since  the  big  "Titanic"  went  down,  fre- 
quently ask  travelers:  "Well,  are  you  satisfied  now 
that  a  big  ship  can  sink?"  Sailors,  like  other  men, 
are  jealous.  ...  A  traveling  Englishman  is  never 
satisfied  unless  he  shows  his  pajamas  all  over  a  ship  or 
hotel.  This  morning,  at  7 : 20,  I  left  my  room  to  go 
down  on  the  street  for  a  walk  before  breakfast.  In  the 
hall  I  found  an  Englishman,  dressed  in  pajamas  only, 
quietly  drinking  tea  from  a  tray  held  by  a  maid. 


FRIDAY,  JANUARY  31. — At  4 :  20  this  afternoon  we 
left  the  Grand  Hotel,  and  went  on  board  the  "Maun- 
ganui,"  advertised  to  sail  for  Sydney  at  5.  The 
Chicago  doctor  went  with  us,  and  said  he  should  be 
very  lonesome  after  our  departure.  He  says  he  intends 
to  amuse  himself  by  trimming  up  Mr.  A.,  the  gentle- 
man who  lived  awhile  at  Lancaster,  Pa.  This  gentle- 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          113 

man  has  very  positive  notions  about  everything,  par- 
ticularly about  Americans,  and  the  Doctor  says  he  in- 
tends to  talk  the  Chicago  language  to  him  after  we  go. 
"I  didn't  like  to  say  anything  rough  while  Miss  Ade- 
laide was  at  the  table,"  the  Doctor  said,  "but  I'll  be 
mad  anyway,  because  of  your  going,  and  he'll  hear 
from  me."  In  addition  to  his  liberal  notions  about 
punishing  men  who  snore,  Mr.  A.  "makes  up"  stories 
about  Americans.  He  says,  for  example,  that  when 
he  was  in  Chicago,  the  hotel  bell-boy  who  guided  him 
to  his  room  took  hold  of  his  coat,  looked  at  it  critically, 
and  said :  "What  funny  clothes  you  Englishmen  wear." 
The  Doctor  is  certain  no  such  thing  ever  happened,  at 
Chicago  or  elsewhere,  and  proposes  to  say  so  to  the 
hero  of  the  incident.  .  .  .  The  "Maunganui"  is 
a  large  ship,  nearly  new,  but  instead  of  two  men  in  my 
room  I  found  three.  The  ship  has  two  parlors,  very 
large  and  fine,  the  floors  covered  with  Turkish  rugs, 
but  its  staterooms  are  very  small,  and  most  of  them 
are  provided  with  four  beds ;  and  extra  beds  are  made 
in  the  dining-room.  There  are  twice  as  many  passen- 
gers on  the  ship  as  there  should  be ;  there  are  almost 
as  many  at  the  second  sitting  in  the  dining-saloon  as 
at  the  first.  .  .  .  Very  much  to  our  surprise,  Mr. 
A.  came  down  to  see  us  off,  and,  on  hearing  that  I  was 
to  occupy  a  room  with  three  others,  said  he  wouldn't 
stand  it ;  that  there  was  a  way  of  avoiding  such  dis- 
agreeable things,  and  that  he  always  found  it.  The 
Doctor  nudged  me,  and,  when  the  row  starts,  this  big 
talk  will  probably  come  up,  also.  Mr.  A.  says  he  has 
already  spoken  to  the  head  waiter  at  the  Grand,  and 
given  him  notice  that  our  places  at  his  table  must  be 


114  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

taken  by  pleasant  people.  .  .  .  Owing  to  an  extra 
amount  of  freight,  the  ship  did  not  get  away  until  7 
o'clock ;  the  Doctor  and  Mr.  A.  left  at  6,  and,  the  last 
we  saw  of  them,  they  seemed  to  be  getting  along 
amicably.  .  .  .  We  finished  dinner  in  time  to  go 
on  deck  and  see  the  ship  leave  the  harbor.  A  heavy 
wind  had  been  blowing  several  days,  and  we  expected 
bad  weather  outside,  but  in  this  we  were  disappointed ; 
the  sea  was  as  calm  as  I  have  ever  seen  it,  and  we 
walked  the  decks  until  ten  o'clock.  Adelaide  is  not  so 
lucky  this  trip,  and  has  three  women  in  her  room. 
.  .  .  The  piano-playing  began  within  an  hour  after 
dinner,  and  most  of  the  players  were  young  men.  There 
are  more  amateur  musicians  in  this  section,  probably, 
than  in  any  other  part  of  the  world.  .  .  .  Two  of 
the  passengers,  young  Englishmen,  are  wearing  smok- 
ing-jackets  with  their  initials  embroidered  on  the 
left  arm.  It  is  an  entirely  new  idea,  and  it  does  not 
seem  improbable  that  other  Englishmen  will  adopt  it. 
.  .  .  Travel  between  New  Zealand  and  Australia 
is  enormous.  The  boats  of  the  Union  Steamship  Co. 
are  always  crowded.  And,  in  saying  your  prayers  at 
night,  ask  for  a  special  curse  on  the  Union  Steamship 
Co.,  as  well  as  on  the  Standard  Oil  Co.,  and  the  East- 
man Kodak  Co.  It  is  a  monopoly,  and  does  just  as  it 
pleases ;  and  it  pleases  to  put  four  men  in  a  room  nine 
by  ten  feet,  which  I  regard  as  a  greater  outrage  than 
that  Decoration  day,  or  Arbor  day,  or  Flag  day,  are 
not  more  generally  observed. 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          115 

SATURDAY,  FEBRUARY  1. — I  have  spent  this  day  in 
bed,  seasick.  Early  this  morning  we  ran  into  a  rough 
sea,  and  not  one  passenger  in  twenty  appeared  at 
breakfast.  Fortunately,  the  three  others  in  my  room 
are  very  polite  gentlemen,  but  this  did  not  prevent 
them  from  being  ill,  and  four  sick  men  in  a  room  nine 
by  ten  feet,  with  one  small  window,  and  that  closed,  is 
not  pleasant.  In  our  room  there  is  not  so  much  as  a 
chair  to  sit  on,  and  not  as  many  hooks  as  one  man  re- 
quires for  his  clothing,  on  retiring ;  I  have  no  hooks  at 
all  in  my  berth,  and,  when  I  went  to  bed,  was  compelled 
to  pile  my  clothes  on  the  bed,  or  under  it.  There  is  one 
washbowl  for  four  men,  and,  after  two  have  used  it, 
the  water  in  this  runs  out.  And  this  on  the  largest  and 
finest  ship  sailing  out  of  New  Zealand.  And  I  paid  $5 
in  addition  to  the  usual  tariff,  in  order  that  I  might 
have  better  than  the  average  first-class  passenger. 
I  have  never  before  seen  four  persons  placed  in  a  room 
on  a  steamship ;  it  occasionally  happens  that  the  sofa 
is  used  for  a  third  passenger,  when  a  ship  is  badly 
crowded,  but  on  the  Atlantic  this  is  rare;  passengers 
won't  stand  it.  But  here,  six  are  often  placed  in  first- 
class  cabins,  and  there  does  not  seem  to  be  much  pro- 
test. The  newspapers  are  always  abusing  the  railroads, 
which  actually  supply  very  good  accommodations;  I 
wonder  they  do  not  have  something  to  say  about  the 
steamships.  The  two  parlors  on  the  "  Maunganui " 
must  be  100  feet  long,  and  as  broad  as  the  ship  itself ; 
yet  they  are  rarely  occupied  by  more  than  a  dozen, 
while  four  people  are  forced  to  occupy  a  room  nine  by 
ten.  The  smoking-room  is  a  fine  apartment,  and  the 
halls  are  wide  and  airy,  but  the  cabins  are  disgrace- 


116  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

fully  small.  If  an  American  is  unwise  enough  to  travel, 
he  should  not  visit  this  part  of  the  world,  where  the 
ships  are  all  small,  and  where  there  does  not  seem  to 
be  the  slightest  protest  against  four  or  six  in  a  cabin. 
The  new  and  fast  ships  on  the  Atlantic  travel  from 
New  York  to  Queenstown  in  almost  the  time  required 
to  travel  from  Australia  to  New  Zealand,  for  the  ships 
here  are  slow  as  well  as  small.  The  distances  here  are 
great ;  in  Europe,  a  trip  of  seven  hours,  which  includes 
crossing  the  English  channel,  takes  you  from  London 
to  Paris.  A  night  takes  you  from  Paris  to  Switzerland, 
and  another  night  to  Rome.  All  the  big  sights  there 
are  comparatively  close  together;  but  the  time  from 
San  Francisco  to  Australia  is  three  weeks,  and,  if  you 
go  by  boat  from  Sydney,  the  time  to  South  Africa  is 
four  weeks.  If  you  have  a  notion  to  visit  this  part  of 
the  world,  give  it  up.  The  people  here  are  always 
polite,  but  it  is  a  country  an  American  will  find  him- 
self familiar  with.  The  Maori  wars  in  New  Zealand 
were  like  our  Indian  wars,  and  the  bush-rangers  in 
Australia  were  like  our  Western  cattle  thieves,  gamblers, 
and  gun-men.  There  is  nothing  picturesque  here,  as 
there  is  in  Japan,  which  may  be  reached  from  San 
Francisco  in  four  days'  less  time  than  is  required  to 
reach  Australia.  Besides,  very  large  ships  sail  from 
San  Francisco  to  Japan  and  China,  whereas  only  small 
ships  sail  from  San  Francisco  to  Australia  or  New  Zea- 
land. .  .  .  It  is  my  experience  that  there  is 
always  something  unpleasant  about  a  ship.  Every 
ship  has  some  peculiarity  of  motion  at  sea,  and  one 
trip  does  not  accustom  you  to  another.  I  waited  a 
week  in  New  Zealand  in  order  to  cross  in  the  big  "  Maun- 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.  117 

ganui,"  but  the  worst  spell  of  seasickness  I  ever  had 
was  in  one  of  the  "  Maunganui's "  rooms.  And  three 
other  gentlemen,  all  experienced  travelers,  joined  me 
in  it,  and  we  grunted,  and  growled,  and  swore  all  day. 
I  refer  to  this  ship  as  a  big  one ;  its  tonnage  is  7,800 ; 
a  boat  twice  as  large  is  considered  rather  small  on  the 
Atlantic.  And  the  idea  that  the  Pacific  is  smooth  and 
the  Atlantic  violent,  is  a  fiction.  Both  are  violent  at 
times,  and  one  is  not  much  worse  than  the  other.  This 
is  the  most  favorable  season,  and  we  have  had  much 
bad  weather.  .  .  .  My  part  of  stateroom  15,  for 
which  I  paid  a  stiff  price,  is  about  as  big  as  a  coffin. 
Next  thing,  they  will  put  a  cot  in  the  space  between 
the  four  beds,  and  sell  it  to  a  silly  man  who  thinks  there 
is  joy  in  traveling,  and  discovers  his  mistake  after  ac- 
tually trying  it.  I  am  as  finicky  and  fussy  as  an  old 
maid  when  it  comes  to  sleeping,  but  my  indignation 
over  four  in  a  room  does  me  no  good ;  no  one  else  seems 
to  object  to  it.  I  suppose  I  will  next  draw  a  room  for 
six;  but  I  don't  care — I  should  as  soon  have  the 
whole  ship's  company  in  with  me  as  three.  .  .  . 
One  is  treated  better  everywhere  than  at  sea.  In  order 
to  travel  comfortably,  a  man  should  be  married,  and 
have  his  wife  with  him.  Then  he  could  have  her  in  a 
room  with  him,  and  impose  on  her,  as  usual.  .  .  . 
A  woman  traveling  incognito,  and  occupying  my  bed 
on  this  ship,  would  not  be  shocked  by  the  three  other 
men  in  the  room.  They  are  polite,  clean,  decent,  and 
considerate.  They  are  Australian  commercial  trav- 
elers, and  this  morning  one  of  them  told  an  "American 
story,"  for  my  benefit.  A  man  was  standing  on  a  street 


118  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

corner  in  Chicago,  vigorously  puffing  a  big  cigar.  A 
good  man  approached  him,  and  said : 

"Do  you  realize  the  waste  of  smoking?  How  many 
cigars  do  you  smoke  a  day?" 

The  smoker  estimated  the  number  at  fifteen,  and 
said  he  had  been  smoking  at  least  twenty  years. 

"Had  you  saved  that  money,"  the  good  man  said, 
"you  might  have  owned  that  sky-scraper,"  pointing  to 
a  big  building  across  the  street. 

"Do  you  smoke?"  the  smoker  asked  the  good  man. 

"Certainly  not,"  was  the  indignant  answer. 

"Do  you  own  that  sky-scraper?" 

"No." 

"Well,"  replied  the  smoker,  puffing  complacently 
on  his  cigar,  "I  do." 


SUNDAY,  FEBRUARY  2. — This  has  been  as  fine  a  day 
as  I  have  ever  experienced  on  a  ship.  As  a  rule,  the 
weather  is  better  far  out  at  sea  than  near  land.  Yes- 
terday the  passengers  were  confined  to  their  rooms,  and 
everywhere  one  might  hear  them  trying  to  get  rid  of  that 
last  meal,  but  today  they  are  all  on  deck.  It  is  a  polite 
and  agreeable  company,  and  the  ship  is  fine,  but  I  still 
dislike  the  sea.  I  don't  care  much  for  close  contact 
with  a  lot  of  people,  however  polite  and  agreeable  they 
may  be.  It  is  pleasant  enough  to  be  in  a  crowd  for  an 
hour  or  two,  and  note  human  characteristics,  but  four 
or  five  days  of  it  is  too  much.  .  .  .  From  the  time 
you  start  on  a  trip  until  you  return,  you  have  the  same 
things  to  eat.  Bills  of  fare  on  ships  are  exactly  alike, 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          119 

and  hotels  copy  the  ships.  I  am  offered  a  great  variety 
of  food  on  the  "Maunganui,"  but  do  not  care  for  it: 
at  dinner  today  I  ordered  a  plate  of  soup,  and  lamb 
with  mint  sauce,  although  the  bill  of  fare  showed  a  very 
great  variety.  Meals  are  announced  in  the  usual  way : 
by  a  man  playing  a  cornet.  The  man  on  the  "Maun- 
ganui" is  unusual  in  that  he  plays  a  part  of  a  selection 
at  every  meal,  and  poses  while  playing.  ...  In 
this  country,  the  uglier  the  man,  the  more  sheep  he 
owns.  The  ugliest  man  I  have  ever  seen  is  on  board, 
and  he  is  said  to  be  the  sheep  king  of  New  Zealand.  It 
is  no  unusual  thing  for  a  man  in  New  Zealand  or  Aus- 
tralia to  own  thirty  or  forty  thousand  sheep.  .  .  . 
This  evening,  after  dinner,  I  was  amused  in  watching 
a  smart  young  fellow  in  the  second  cabin.  The  second 
cabin  deck  is  separated  from  ours  by  a  rail  containing 
this  notice :  "Second  cabin  passengers  not  allowed  for- 
ward of  this."  The  smart  young  fellow  was  amusing 
a  number  of  companions  by  walking  around  the  first 
cabin  deck.  His  companions  thought  he  was  extremely 
devilish,  and  laughed  boisterously  when  he  returned 
safely.  I  sat  near  them,  and  could  hear  their  conver- 
sation. The  bold  young  man  said  that  if  anyone  would 
give  him  a  shilling,  he  would  go  up  the  stairs  to  the  next 
deck,  and  spend  it  in  the  first  cabin  smoking-room. 
The  shilling  was  produced,  and  I  saw  the  young  man 
disappear  up  the  stairway.  Then  he  offered  to  speak 
to  the  captain  for  another  shilling,  and  disappeared 
for  that  purpose,  but  whether  he  did  it  or  not,  I  do 
not  know.  The  young  men  were  having  a  tremendous 
lot  of  fun  without  harming  anyone.  .  .  .  Last 
night  there  was  almost  continuous  piano-playing  in  the 


120  TEAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

big  parlor  of  the  ship.  A  man  or  woman  was  waiting 
all  the  time,  with  music,  for  a  chance  at  the  piano ;  it  re- 
minded me  of  passengers  waiting  around  the  bath- 
rooms during  the  rush  hour.  Two  young  girls,  sisters, 
sat  in  the  room  the  entire  evening.  They  pretended 
to  be  reading,  but  they  were  really  watching  and  talk- 
ing about  people,  and  their  short,  quick  remarks  to 
each  other  probably  contained  a  good  deal  of  ginger. 
.  .  .  When  you  can't  do  anything  else  to  a  boy,  you 
can  make  him  wash  his  face.  There  is  a  man  on  board 
with  a  son  seven  or  eight  years  old,  and  certainly  every 
hour  I  hear  the  father  say  to  the  son:  "Go  to  your 
room,  sir,  and  wash  your  face.  And  use  a  little  extra 
soap  on  your  hands."  .  .  .  Seasickness  is  no  dis- 
grace. Governor  Grose,  of  American  Samoa,  and  who 
is  also  captain  of  the  warship  "Princeton,"  told  me 
that  he  is  often  seasick;  and  he  has  been  a  sailor 
twenty-five  years.  ...  I  heard  a  man  making  a 
long  explanation  today,  and  I  knew  he  was  not  telling 
the  truth ;  an  explanation  is  never  the  truth,  on  sea  or 
land.  ...  A  lonesome  old  woman  on  board  at- 
tracts the  attention  of  all  the  passengers.  I  talked  to 
her  awhile  this  afternoon,  and  she  made  one  remark  I'll 
never  forget. 

"My  children,"  she  said,  "are  already  reconciled  to 
my  death." 

She  is  traveling  alone,  is  ill,  and  occupies  a  room 
with  three  young  women  who  don't  want  her  in  with 
them,  and  she  is  very  wretched.  Will  your  children 
be  reconciled  to  your  death  by  the  time  you  are  sixty- 
five  or  seventy?  Probably;  maybe  earlier. 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          121 

MONDAY,  FEBRUARY  3. — A  man  on  board  was  born 
in  Warsaw,  New  York,  but  has  been  in  business  in  Syd- 
ney for  the  past  thirty  years.  He  says  the  Australian 
and  New  Zealand  newspapers  are  habitually  unfair  with 
events  in  the  United  States.  He  often  writes  to  the 
editors,  and  corrects  their  blunders,  but  they  refuse 
to  print  his  letters.  The  papers  frequently  print  refer- 
ences to  American  crooks  arriving  hi  Australasia  which 
are  palpably  unfair  and  untrue;  on  one  occasion  the 
American  obtained  a  letter  from  the  police  authorities 
saying  that  certain  thieves  referred  to  as  Americans, 
were  not  Americans,  but  not  a  newspaper  hi  Australia 
would  print  the  American's  indignant  denial.  All 
American  news  in  the  Australian  and  New  Zealand 
papers  conies  from  London,  although  it  might  be  easily 
obtained  direct  from  American  papers.  American  news 
coming  by  way  of  London  is  of  course  unreliable.  He 
says  that  the  middle-class  people  here  admire  Amer- 
icans, but  that  the  Imperialists  do  not,  and  always 
misrepresent  them.  I  asked  him  what  he  meant  by 
the  term  "Imperialist." 

"Well,"  he  replied,  "an  Australian  or  New-Zealander 
will  go  to  London,  and  be  entertained  at  dinner  by  a 
cheap  duke  or  knight.  After  that,  he  is  an  Imperialist, 
and  talks  of  England  as  'back  home.'  Admiration  for 
the  rich  is  often  ridiculous,  but  it  is  nothing  compared 
with  admiration  for  a  title." 

I  asked  him  how  the  general  prosperity  here  compared 
with  the  average  prosperity  in  America.  He  replied 
that  the  farmers  here  are  more  prosperous  generally 
than  the  farmers  of  New  York  state. 

"But,"  I  said  to  him,  "the  fanners  of  New  York 


122  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

state  are  not  typical  American  farmers.  Our  typical 
farmers  are  found  in  Iowa,  Kansas,  Nebraska,  Missouri, 
Wisconsin,  Illinois,  Oklahoma,  and  states  of  that  class." 

"I  have  heard  of  the  great  prosperity  of  Kansas 
farmers,"  he  said;  "our  farmers  are  not  as  prosperous 
as  the  Kansas  farmers  are  said  to  be.  And  our  farmers 
do  not  live  as  well  as  yours.  Not  on  one  farm  in  fifty 
here  will  you  find  a  vegetable  garden  or  fruit  tree ;  I 
should  say  your  farmers  are  much  superior  to  ours  in 
culture,  too.  Certainly  the  educational  test  is  higher 
in  your  rural  communities  than  it  is  with  us.  Your 
working-people,  in  my  judgment,  earn  better  wages 
than  ours." 

Here,  as  elsewhere,  the  railroads  are  considered  fair 
game  for  every  swindler.  This  man  says  that  a  few 
months  ago  there  was  a  railroad  accident  in  Australia, 
and  three  hundred  and  forty-three  claims  for  damages 
were  filed.  Investigation  revealed  the  fact  that  there 
were  but  two  hundred  and  fifty-one  passengers  on 
the  wrecked  train.  .  .  .  One  prominent  fault 
here  is  overcrowding.  You  notice  it  on  every  rail- 
road train,  in  every  ship,  and  in  every  hotel.  Crowd- 
ing is  barbarism.  The  railroads,  although  owned 
by  the  government,  do  not  run  enough  trains.  The 
ship  on  which  this  is  written  is  crowded  beyond 
the  legal  or  safe  limit.  .  .  .  Possibly  you  do 
not  know  that  the  casings  of  American  "wieners" 
come  from  Australian  or  South-American  sheep.  I 
met  a  traveling-man  the  other  day  who  sells  noth- 
ing but  sausage  casings;  mainly  sheep  entrails, 
and  his  house  has  branches  nearly  everywhere.  The 
most  interesting  thing  in  the  world  is  business,  but 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          123 

it  is  neglected  by  magazines  and  newspapers  for  scandal 
or  foolish  fiction.  .  .  .  There  is  a  good  deal  of 
excitement  here  now  over  what  is  called  "American 
blight,"  which  affects  fruit.  My  American  friend  who 
lives  in  Sydney  says  he  secured  undoubted  evidence 
that  the  blight  existed  in  Tasmania  in  1832,  and  does 
not  come  from  America,  but  the  newspapers  will  not 
print  his  evidence.  ...  I  can  easily  understand 
that  everything  American  is  unfairly  treated  by  the 
papers  of  Australia.  We  in  America  are  grossly  unfair 
with  everything  English,  not  because  we  desire  to  be, 
but  because  we  do  not  know  any  better.  I  grossly  ex- 
aggerate that  which  I  do  not  understand,  and  so  does 
everyone.  .  .  .  The  fine  weather  continues,  and 
all  day  the  sea  has  been  as  smooth  as  a  pond.  I  am  in 
good  humor  today,  but  I  am  still  of  the  opinion  that 
four  men  in  a  steamship  room  nine  by  ten  is  an  out- 
rage. You  cannot  realize  its  discomfort  until  you  have 
had  experience.  .  .  .  Late  last  night,  while  sitting 
hi  the  music-room  of  the  ship  "Maunganui,"  a  steward 
came  hi  to  collect  the  steamer  rugs  scattered  about. 
The  steward  told  me  that  for  several  months  he  has 
averaged  $35  a  week  hi  tips.  The  ship  is  always 
crowded;  this  trip  there  were  ninety  people  at  the 
second  sitting  hi  the  dining-room.  As  a  result,  the 
stewards  have  a  double  number  in  the  dining-room  and 
a  double  number  in  the  staterooms.  I  doubt  if  the 
captain  makes  more  than  the  most  popular  and  capable 
stewards  on  his  ship.  A  passenger  told  me  that  he 
frequently  sees  the  stewards  of  the  "Maunganui"  rid- 
ing in  motor  cars  hi  Sydney,  and  drinking  champagne 
with  lady  friends  in  the  expensive  restaurants.  The 


124  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

steward  said  that  when  he  starts  on  a  trip,  he  can  look 
over  the  passengers  in  his  care  and  tell  almost  exactly 
what  he  will  get  in  tips  when  the  ship  lands.  He  showed 
me  a  $5  gold-piece  which  one  man  had  given  him,  al- 
though the  usual  tip  is  $1.25.  Why  did  that  passenger 
give  $5?  Largely  because  he  was  a  fool,  I  should  say, 
for  ship  servants  rarely  do  anything  special  for  passen- 
gers. The  steward  told  me,  also,  that  the  tourists  are 
the  best  pay ;  that  commercial  men  demand  a  good  deal 
of  service,  and  tip  lightly,  whereas  all  tourists  tip  liber- 
ally, whether  they  receive  any  special  attention  or  not. 
As  soon  as  a  tourist  goes  on  a  ship,  he  begins  inquiring 
concerning  the  tipping  customs,  and  if  he  asks  the  bar- 
ber, or  an  officer,  he  is  advised  to  be  liberal.  There  is 
a  law  in  New  Zealand  which  prohibits  ship  employees 
from  working  more  than  eight  hours  a  day.  .  .  . 
One  of  the  passengers  is  a  man  named  Willis,  Speaker 
of  the  New  South  Wales  House  of  Parliament.  He  is 
accompanied  by  his  wife,  two  young  lady  daughters, 
and  a  son.  All  of  them  ate  at  the  second  sitting  in  the 
dining-room.  I  was  told  by  several  passengers  that 
Willis  is  very  unpopular ;  he  certainly  received  no  at- 
tention on  board.  In  Australia  there  are  only  two 
political  parties :  the  Labor  and  the  Liberal.  Willis, 
it  is  said,  was  a  Liberal  for  years,  and  then  switched  to 
Labor,  although  he  is  not  a  workingman ;  on  the  con- 
trary, he  is  well  off.  Many  people  regard  him  as  a 
political  adventurer,  but  they  all  credit  him  with  un- 
usual cleverness.  I  predict  that  some  of  these  days 
he  will  get  even  with  the  Union  Steamship  Co.  for  put- 
ting him  at  the  second  sitting  in  the  dining-room.  I 
heard  an  American  woman  say  lately  that  New  Zea- 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          125 

land  women  wear  funny  shoes  and  corsets.  The  Speak- 
er 's  women-folks  do ;  for  several  days  I  thought  Willis 
was  a  prosperous  sheep  farmer  going  to  Sydney  to 
spend  his  money.  The  women  of  Australia  lack  the 
good  taste  in  dress  that  distinguishes  the  women  of 
countries  less  prosperous.  .  .  .  Young  children  are 
better  behaved  here  than  in  the  United  States;  they 
"mind"  better,  and  lack  the  impudence  which  dis- 
tinguishes so  many  children  with  us.  ...  The 
population  of  New  Zealand  does  not  increase;  that 
country  does  not  hustle  for  immigrants,  as  Australia 
does.  Besides,  a  good  many  of  the  New  Zealand  sheep 
farmers  are  going  to  Argentina,  in  South  America,  one 
of  the  wonders  of  modern  times,  and  more  favorable 
for  sheep-raising  than  this  section.  Wellington,  a  fine 
town,  and  the  capital  of  New  Zealand,  does  not  grow ; 
when  I  was  there,  the  old  wooden  capitol  was  being 
repaired,  and  will  probably  be  used  another  forty  years. 
The  population  of  New  Zealand  is  only  a  million ;  but 
for  that  matter  big  Australia  has  only  five  times  as 
many,  almost  one-half  of  them  being  in  the  big  cities 
on  the  coast.  The  interior  of  Australia  is  hot,  and  its 
inhabitants  hug  the  coast. 


TUESDAY,  FEBRUARY  4. — The  greatest  pleasure  of 
this  day  consisted  of  leaving  the  ship.  At  8  o'clock  this 
morning  I  had  another  sight  of  Sydney's  famous  har- 
bor, and  at  9  we  landed  and  went  to  the  Australia  Hotel, 
where  we  saw  another  fine  sight :  several  Americans. 
We  found  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Harry  Clay  Blaney,  the  New 


126  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

York  theatrical  people,  there,  and  several  others  we 
knew  on  the  "Sonoma."  The  Blaneys  leave  next  Sat- 
urday for  the  Philippine  Islands  and  China,  by  'a  ship 
of  twenty-seven  hundred  tons;  it  is  so  small  that  it 
cannot  accommodate  more  than  two  dozen  first-class 
passengers.  Nothing  could  induce  me  to  take  that 
trip;  the  ship  is  too  small.  I  leave  on  the  12th  for 
Durban,  in  South  Africa,  on  the  "Anchises,"  a  ship 
of  12,000  tons,  and  have  been  grumbling  because  it  is 
not  larger.  .  .  .  Another  American  I  met  there  is 
W.  B.  Knight,  born  in  New  York  state,  and  reared  in 
the  Standard  Oil  Co.  family  at  Cleveland,  Ohio.  He 
is  now  connected  with  the  Texas  company,  but  re- 
ceived all  his  training  with  the  Standard.  There  is  a 
great  deal  of  romance  connected  with  Mr.  Knight's 
business  career.  He  has  lived  hi  Persia,  India,  China, 
Japan,  Australia,  the  Straits  Settlements,  and  half  a 
dozen  other  strange  places.  His  wife  is  the  daughter 
of  another  wandering  oil  man,  and  they  were  married 
at  Canton,  China,  at  the  American  Legation,  by  a 
preacher  from  Pennsylvania.  His  wife  is  with  him 
here,  and  they  are  both  anxious  to  get  home :  both  de- 
clare that  this  is  their  last  trip — that  they  are  tired  of 
hotel,  ship  and  railroad  life.  Mr.  Knight  said  to  me : 
"I  am  now  an  opponent  of  the  Standard  Oil  Co.,  but 
have  no  hesitancy  in  saying  that  the  manner  in  which 
that  company  is  persecuted  by  the  government  is  a 
disgrace.  I  have  been  intimate  with  Standard  affairs 
a  quarter  of  a  century,  and  have  never  known  the  com- 
pany to  be  guilty  of  a  disreputable  or  dishonest  act. 
The  company  with  which  I  have  been  connected  a 
year,  the  Texas  company,  is  composed  almost  entirely 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          127 

of  men  trained  by  the  Standard,  and  we  are  trying  to  do 
what  the  Standard  has  done.  We  are  the  opposition, 
but  our  business  methods  are  no  better  than  those  of 
the  Standard." 


WEDNESDAY,  FEBRUARY  5. — I  am  almost  persuaded 
that  Sydney  is  one  of  the  handsomest  cities  I  have  ever 
visited.  One  of  its  numerous  bays  extends  so  far  in 
the  interior  that  it  is  called  a  river.  We  traveled  up  it 
today  by  boat  for  an  hour  and  a  half,  and  all  the  way 
saw  handsome  homes,  and  attractive  coves.  Return- 
ing, we  came  by  electric  car  most  of  the  way,  and  saw 
another  interesting  part  of  the  city.  While  waiting 
for  a  car,  we  went  into  a  little  place  for  a  drink.  We 
ordered  what  seemed  to  be  ginger  ale,  and  it  was  cold ; 
it  is  warmer  in  Australia  than  in  New  Zealand,  and  the 
people  have  learned  the  value  of  ice.  "In  America, 
you  would  call  it  pop,"  the  woman  said.  There  is  no 
doubt  here  as  to  our  identity.  .  .  .  The  weather 
today  has  been  as  hot  as  we  ever  get  it  on  the  Fourth 
of  July.  And  this  the  5th  of  February.  ...  In 
the  United  States  there  is  a  great  rivalry  as  to  the  best 
five-cent  cigar.  Here  the  manufacturers  of  six-cent 
cigars  make  equally  extravagant  claims.  .  .  .  There 
is  nothing  serious  the  matter  with  this  country  except 
that  managers  of  steamships  put  four  in  a  room  9x10 
feet.  The  officers  of  the  ships  do  not  sleep  in  any  such 
higgledy-piggledy  fashion ;  they  insist  upon  large  single 
rooms  for  themselves,  but  force  four  passengers  into  a 
room  not  big  enough  for  one.  During  the  Spanish- 
American  war,  you  may  remember  that  the  American 


128  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

officers,  including  Theodore  Roosevelt,  rebelled  against 
certain  regulations  of  their  superiors.  This  rebellion 
they  called  a  round  robin.  This  country  needs  a  sim- 
ilar rebellion  against  four  in  the  same  steamship  room. 
.  .  .  There  are  so  many  ferries  in  Sydney  harbor 
carrying  people  to  different  suburbs  along  the  bays  that 
occasionally  incoming  steamships  are  held  up  during 
rush  hours,  in  order  that  the  ferry  traffic  may  not  be 
interfered  with.  This  usually  happens  between  7 :  30 
and  8  in  the  morning.  .  .  .  Wherever  English 
print  is  in  use,  you  will  see  the  name  of  Theodore 
Roosevelt.  He  knows  more  of  the  art  of  securing  free 
advertising  than  any  other  living  man.  In  a  morning 
paper  I  find  a  Melbourne  dispatch  saying  the  Minister 
for  Home  Affairs  has  received  a  letter  from  Mr.  Roose- 
velt. A  part  of  the  letter  is  quoted,  as  follows : 

"There  is  nothing  that  would  give  me  more  pleasure 
than  to  visit  Australia.  I  cannot  imagine  any  Amer- 
ican seriously  interested  in  the  affairs  of  his  country 
and  of  the  world  who  would  not  feel  himself  fortunate 
to  visit  your  great  commonwealth.  You  have  been 
pioneers  along  many  paths  of  social  and  industrial  re- 
form. I  have  personally  a  very  great  admiration  for 
the  Australian  people.  One  of  my  prized  hunting 
companions  in  Africa  was  an  Australian,"  etc.,  etc. 

In  the  same  newspaper  I  find  the  following  from  New 
Zealand : 

"The  High  Commissioner  for  New  Zealand  said  he 
was  proud  that  the  Dominion  had  led  the  way  in  pre- 
senting a  battleship  to  the  British  Empire.  Mr.  James 
Allen,  Minister  for  Defense,  said  New  Zealand  would 
not  be  satisfied  until  she  gave  both  men  and  ships." 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          129 

What  may  be  said  of  New  Zealand  may  be  said  of 
Australia.  Is  it  pioneering  in  social  or  industrial  re- 
form for  a  peaceful  country  to  build  battleships,  and 
present  them  to  a  quarrelsome  king  thousands  of  miles 
away?  .  .  .  This  afternoon  I  went  to  a  theatre, 
and  saw  moving  pictures  of  the  Panama  canal.  The 
pictures  have  packed  the  house  for  weeks;  they  are 
doing  much  to  increase  respect  here  for  American 
energy  and  ability.  The  comments  I  heard  around 
me  were  extremely  gratifying.  Never  in  the  history 
of  the  world  has  a  great  work  been  carried  on  as  ener- 
getically, as  economically  or  as  intelligently  as  at  Pan- 
ama. These  pictures  prove  the  smartness  of  the 
Yankee,  and  the  actual  accomplishment  at  Panama  is 
as  great  as  the  big  talk  about  the  smart  Yankee  has 
ever  been.  ...  In  this  city  of  Sydney  there  is  a 
big  department  store  operated  by  the  Anthony  Hordern 
Co.  Anthony  Hordern  was  a  plodder  who  built  up  a 
great  business,  and  died  from  overwork  at  sixty-four. 
The  business  is  now  managed  by  heads  of  departments 
trained  by  Anthony  Hordern,  but  his  two  sons  own  it. 
A  floor-walker  told  me  today  that  the  store  employs 
four  thousand  people,  and  has  fifteen  acres  of  floor 
space.  I  do  not  know  just  how  much  an  Australian's 
statements  should  be  discounted ;  the  average  at  home 
is  about  one-third.  The  store  has  a  special  sale  on  now, 
which  is  attracting  great  crowds,  as  special  sales  seem 
to  everywhere.  Wherever  I  go  here,  floor-walkers  step 
up  and  ask  if  I  have  been  waited  on,  whereupon  I  reply 
that  I  am  simply  a  visitor  looking  about,  etc.  In  most 
cases  the  floor-walker  will  show  me  around;  at  An- 
thony Hordern's  today,  he  mentioned  Marshall  Field's 


130  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

place  in  Chicago,  and  at  once  labeled  me  as  an  Amer- 
ican. The  Anthony  Hordern  store  is  very  large,  but 
not  half  as  big  as  the  Marshall  Field  store.  And  it 
isn't  half  as  fine.  The  Hordern  store  looks  old-fash- 
ioned; the  ceilings  are  low,  and  the  place  isn't  very 
neat — I  don't  know  exactly  what  the  trouble  is,  but  I 
was  compelled  to  tell  the  floor-walker,  a  very  polite 
man,  that  it  wasn't  in  the  Marshall  Field  class.  .  .  . 
At  sea,  I  become  angry,  and  half  the  tune  won't  take 
my  bath,  or  shave,  or  dress  for  dinner,  but  when  I  am 
on  land,  I  am  good-natured,  and  thoroughly  enjoy 
going  about.  It  is  a  joy  for  me  to  poke  around  a 
strange  town.  On  our  return  to  Sydney  we  employed 
the  same  boy  who  showed  us  about  on  our  first  visit ; 
we  liked  the  little  man,  although  we  could  not  under- 
stand half  he  said.  At  the  Anthony  Hordern  store 
today,  we  wanted  to  go  up  to  the  art  department,  but 
the  elevator  man  could  not  understand  my  pronunci- 
ation of  the  word  Art.  The  boy  had  heard  the  floor- 
walker recommend  that  we  visit  the  Art  department, 
so  he  pronounced  the  word  Art,  and  the  elevator  man 
understood  him.  .  .  .  The  floor-walker  wanted  to 
introduce  me  to  young  Anthony  Hordern,  but  I  asked 
to  be  excused.  No  doubt  the  son  was  like  a  sailor  on 
the  "Sonoma:"  Captain  Trask  said  he  wasn't  worth 
much  except  to  play  the  part  of  "Neptune"  when  the 
ship  crossed  the  line.  ...  I  am  good-natured  now, 
and  intend  to  dress  for  dinner  tonight,  and  drink  coffee 
in  the  Whiter  Garden  afterwards,  but  as  soon  as  I  go 
on  board  the  "Anchises"  at  Adelaide,  I  expect  to  be 
mad  again.  The  sea  knocks  me,  and  I  can't  help  it. 
And  it  will  knock  you,  if  you  fool  with  it,  and  have  lived 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          131 

in  a  prairie  country  a  good  deal.  .  .  .  Adelaide  has 
been  much  interested  in  the  fact  that  there  is  a  smart 
city  in  Australia  named  Adelaide ;  it  is  at  this  town  we 
take  ship  for  South  Africa.  She  has  also  been  inter- 
ested in  Cape  Howe,  and  Lord  Howe  Island;  but  I 
called  her  attention  to  a  historical  fact  today  which  had 
previously  escaped  her.  It  seems  that  in  the  early  days, 
one  of  the  famous  bush-rangers  was  Michael  Howe,  a 
convict  who  had  been  a  sailor.  He  was  sent  here  to 
serve  seven  years  for  robbery,  but  he  escaped,  and  joined 
a  band  of  bush-rangers.  He  soon  became  their  chief, 
and  ruled  like  a  tyrant.  He  was  also  very  haughty, 
calling  himself  "the  governor  of  the  range."  The  gov- 
ernor of  the  colony  he  called  "the  governor  of  the  town." 
A  price  was  placed  on  the  head  of  Michael  Howe,  and 
one  day  a  sailor  named  Worral,  also  a  convict,  brought 
it  in.  Worral  received  the  promised  reward,  and  was 
sent  back  to  England  a  free  man.  No  convicts  have 
been  sent  to  Australia  from  England  since  1868.  .  .  . 
You  may  think  I  grumble  about  ships  a  good  deal. 
You  mainly  hear  grumbling  on  shipboard.  Whoever 
tells  the  truth  will  confess  that  he  didn't  have  a  very 
good  time  at  sea.  When  I  went  on  the  trip  to  the 
West  Indies,  I  did  so  well  that  I  fancied  I  was  becoming 
a  sad  sea-dog.  This  experience  induced  me  to  under- 
take the  present  journey ;  but  I  know  now  that  my  sea- 
legs  are  wobbly.  I  can  get  along  well  enough  on  land 
anywhere,  but  I  do  not  understand  the  ways  of  ocean- 
going crews,  or  of  those  strange  persons  who  pretend 
to  like  ship  voyages. 


132  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

THURSDAY,  FEBRUARY  6. — This  morning  we  went 
with  the  Blaneys  to  inspect  the  "Prince  Waldemar," 
the  little  ship  on  which  they  will  sail  next  Saturday  for 
the  Philippine  Islands  and  China.  Except  that  it  is 
small,  we  were  delighted  with  it.  The  servants  are  Jap- 
anese, and  the  sailors  of  a  brown  race  with  which  we 
are  not  familiar.  The  Blaneys  have  a  stateroom  with 
two  windows ;  it  is  so  large  that  the  chief  steward  of 
the  "Maunganui"  would  have  crowded  at  least  six 
into  it.  Never  travel  on  a  popular  ship,  or  fall  in  love 
with  a  beautiful  woman  who  has  many  admirers.  The 
servants  of  the  "Prince  Waldemar"  were  as  grateful 
for  a  little  attention  as  an  old  maid.  The  boat  is  said 
to  have  excellent  management,  but  it  is  only  half  as 
big  as  the  "Sonoma,"  and  the  "Sonoma"  is  a  pony. 
The  "Prince  Waldemar"  is  a  2,700-ton  boat;  the 
"  Anchises,"  on  which  we  sail  for  South  Africa,  is  12,000 
tons.  Any  ship  under  17,000  tons  is  a  crime.  There 
are  no  real  ships  in  Australian  waters;  if  a  real  ship 
should  visit  Sydney,  people  would  come  from  New 
Zealand,  and  travel  four  and  six  in  a  room,  to  look  at  it. 
A  ship  of  12,000  tons  is  referred  to  as  a  "Leviathan  of 
the  Deep "  in  the  papers  here.  The  "Baltic,"  on  which 
I  crossed  the  Atlantic  not  very  long  ago,  is  a  38,000-ton 
ship ;  and,  when  the  weather  is  rough,  it  is  none  too 
large.  The  Hamburg-American  company  is  building 
a  ship  almost  twice  as  large  as  the  "Baltic."  .  .  . 
Near  the  "Prince  Waldemar"  lay  the  "Ventura,"  sis- 
ter ship  of  the  "  Sonoma,"  and  which  sails  for  San  Fran- 
cisco next  Saturday.  We  went  on  board,  and  it  was 
like  a  visit  home,  as  it  is  exactly  like  the  "Sonoma" 
in  every  detail.  We  showed  our  "Sonoma"  pictures, 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          133 

and  soon  had  members  of  the  crew  interested.  Among 
other  pictures,  we  had  one  of  the  "Ventura,"  taken  at 
sea  when  we  passed  it  on  Christmas  day.  The  Amer- 
ican flag  was  displayed  at  the  ship's  peak,  and  it  looked 
as  good  to  us  as  it  probably  looks  to  an  old  soldier  on 
Decoration  Day.  .  .  .  We  meet  traveling  ac- 
quaintances every  day.  This  morning  we  met  Mr. 
Adams,  the  life  insurance  man,  whose  wife  was  so  ill  on 
the  "Sonoma,"  and  who  was  so  devoted  to  her  that  the 
men  were  proud  of  him.  "I  am  staying  at  the  Went- 
worth,"  he  said ;  "it  is  twice  as  good  as  the  Australia." 
The  Australia  Hotel  is  the  best  in  Australasia  (which  in- 
cludes New  Zealand),  and  of  course  many  hotels  are 
said  to  be  superior  to  it.  Mr.  Adams  is  meeting  his 
wife's  kin  for  the  first  time,  but  I  neglected  to  ask  him 
if  he  suited.  .  .  .  We  also  met  the  Sandersons. 
We  greatly  admired  Mrs.  Sanderson,  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  she  is  English.  She  was  coming  over  to  meet  her 
husband's  people  for  the  first  time,  and  we  predicted 
she  would  be  satisfactory ;  but  she  was  fearful — people 
are  so  particular  in  cases  of  that  kind.  Mr.  Sanderson, 
however,  told  me  that  his  folks  dearly  love  his  wife. 
Mr.  Sanderson  is  the  man  who  operates  apple  orchards 
in  Oregon,  and  they  leave  for  home  on  Saturday,  on 
the  "Ventura."  .  .  .  At  7 : 40  in  the  evening  we 
resumed  The  Traveler's  Trot,  and  departed  by  train 
for  Melbourne,  585  miles.  The  railroad  is  standard 
gauge,  and  the  sleeper  very  good.  As  usual,  we  found 
the  train  crowded.  Melbourne  is  almost  as  large  as 
Sydney,  yet  there  is  but  one  railroad  between  the  two 
cities,  and  this  runs  but  one  train  a  day :  a  train  in 
three  sections,  leaving  at  7  :  40,  8  and  9  :  30  P.  M.  Be- 


134  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

tween  Kansas  City  and  Chicago  there  are  at  least  five 
direct  lines,  and  each  line  runs  numerous  through  trains 
daily:  morning,  noon,  and  night.  The  government 
lines  do  not  pay  as  high  wages  as  our  privately  owned 
lines.  The  train  on  which  I  traveled  between  Sydney 
and  Melbourne  is  the  best  in  Australia ;  it  may  be  com- 
pared with  the  Pennsylvania  Limited  between  Chicago 
and  New  York.  The  conductor,  or  guard,  received 
$3  a  day.  The  engineer  received  $3.75  a  day,  and  the 
fireman  $1.75.  Engineers  on  freight  trains  here  re- 
ceive as  low  as  $3  a  day.  The  wages  of  similar  em- 
ployees in  the  United  States  are  certainly  double.  .  .  . 
The  train  made  good  time,  and  I  slept  better  than  I 
usually  sleep  in  a  sleeping-car.  The  sleeper  was  not 
gaudy  and  heavy  like  a  Pullman,  but  it  did  very  well. 
The  only  attendant  was  a  white  man,  who  made  up 
the  beds  as  well  as  took  the  tickets.  The  sleeping-car 
fare  from  8  P.  M.  to  7  A.  M.  (when  we  changed  to  cars  of 
another  gauge),  was  $2.50.  The  charge  for  a  similar 
service  in  the  United  States  is  universally  $2.  The 
train  fare  was  about  two  and  a  half  cents  a  mile ;  in 
Kansas,  the  universal  charge  for  first-class  passengers 
is  two  cents  a  mile.  The  time  was  rather  fast,  but  as 
the  cars  were  light,  the  train  was  noisy  and  unsteady. 
The  people  in  Australia  are  more  accustomed  to  Amer- 
icans than  are  New-Zealanders,  and  we  do  not  attract 
so  much  attention,  but  they  immediately  spot  us  as 
Americans.  I  have  never  in  my  life,  anywhere,  met 
as  many  polite  people  as  I  have  met  here  and  hi  New 
Zealand ;  I  believe  I  have  said  this  before,  but  I  wish 
to  repeat  and  emphasize  the  statement.  ...  I 
think  I  detect  a  slight  difference  between  New  Zealand 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          135 

and  Australia :  the  last  named  is  more  prosperous,  and 
does  everything  a  little  better.  Australians  have  a 
little  of  the  swagger  and  strut  you  detect  in  Chicago 
people,  whereas  New-Zealanders  are  as  modest  as  peo- 
ple living  in  St.  Louis,  or  any  other  less  prosperous  and 
enterprising  city. 


FRIDAY,  FEBRUARY  7. — In  the  wash-room  of  the 
sleeping-car,  early  this  morning,  I  met  an  American, 
a  Boston  man,  who  has  been  a  gentleman  farmer  in 
Australia  for  twelve  years.  He  told  me  he  owned  52,- 
000  acres  of  land,  and  that  whereas  he  came  here  with 
nothing  twelve  years  ago,  he  would  not  take  a  million 
and  a  half  dollars  for  what  he  owns  now.  He  origin- 
ally visited  the  country  on  business,  thought  he  de- 
tected great  possibilities,  and  came  here  to  live.  He 
didn't  know  corn  from  barley  when  he  began,  but  ap- 
plied business  rules  to  farming,  and  has  succeeded.  I 
expressed  surprise  as  to  his  large  land-holding,  where- 
upon he  told  me  that  in  the  interior  there  are  sheep 
farms  five  hundred  miles  square,  or  as  big  as  the  state 
of  Kansas.  This  land  is  leased  from  the  government 
at  a  penny  an  acre.  Artesian  wells  three  thousand 
feet  deep  are  being  bored,  and  these  wells  are  greatly 
improving  the  arid  districts.  There  are  plenty  of  stock 
farms  in  Australia  150  to  200  miles  square.  .  .  . 
The  Boston  man  pays  a  good  deal  of  attention  to  dairy- 
ing, although  he  is  interested  in  all  branches  of  farming : 
fruit,  vegetables,  grain,  stock,  etc.,  and  employs  280 
men.  Farm  wages  are  lower  here,  judging  from  what 
he  told  me,  than  in  the  United  States.  He  has  no 


136  TRAVEL  LETTERS  PROM 

renters  on  his  land;  he  calls  that  "the  lazy,  shiftless 
way."  He  says  the  people  here  do  not  know  the  mean- 
ing of  hard  work ;  that  they  work  only  five  days  a  week, 
and  have  very  short  hours,  whereas  he  has  always 
worked  long  hours  every  day ;  and  it  agrees  with  him, 
for  he  is  stout,  and  looks  exactly  like  a  prosperous  busi- 
ness man.  He  owns  thousands  of  sheep  and  cattle; 
and  if  I  did  not  make  an  error  hi  my  notes,  he  told  me 
he  made  $175,000  from  his  land  last  year.  I  remember 
the  statement  particularly  because  he  had  just  been 
telling  me  about  an  income  tax  lately  imposed,  and 
which  hit  him  hard.  One  tract  of  his  land,  2,500  acres, 
cost  him  $150,000,  counting  an  irrigation  plant  which 
he  built;  but  lately  he  refused  $225,000  for  it.  He 
predicts  that  as  soon  as  Americans  find  out  the  oppor- 
tunities for  making  money  here,  they  will  come  in 
flocks.  He  told  me  of  one  piece  of  land  that  is  worth 
$400  an  acre,  and  which  has  been  producing  corn  at 
the  rate  of  100  bushels  per  acre  for  sixty-five  years, 
without  manuring.  This  is  choice  land  hi  a  choice 
district,  and  perhaps  the  statement  is  exaggerated,  as 
we  exaggerate  when  we  talk  of  forty  bushels  of  wheat 
per  acre,  or  seventy  of  corn.  The  country  through 
which  we  were  passing  looked  very  dry,  but  the  Amer- 
ican said  it  was  good  land ;  the  famous  chocolate  land 
of  Australia,  so  named  because  the  soil  has  a  reddish 
cast.  "We  have  been  having  a  drouth  for  two 
months,"  he  said,  "and  the  dry  weather  is  good  for  the 
land."  He  talked  a  good  deal  about  "sour"  and 
"sweet"  soil.  I  said  the  expressions  were  new  to  me, 
and  my  companion  laughingly  replied  that  he  was  for- 
getting all  he  ever  knew  about  America ;  he  made  me 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          137 

think  of  an  Englishman  who  had  traveled  a  good  deal 
in  America,  and  had  the  rough  edges  worn  off.  At  sev- 
eral of  the  stations  through  which  we  passed  we  saw  a 
great  deal  of  wheat  piled  on  the  ground,  in  three-bushel 
sacks.  We  also  saw  numerous  twelve-ox  teams  along 
the  country  roads,  hauling  sacked  wheat  to  market. 
Wheat  is  harvested  here  in  a  fashion  which  seems  bet- 
ter than  our  way.  A  machine  slightly  larger  than  our 
harvester  is  used.  This  machine  pulls  the  heads  off  the 
wheat,  and  threshes  them ;  the  grain  is  then  put  into 
sacks,  and  dumped  on  the  ground,  as  our  harvesters 
dump  the  twine-bound  sheaves.  A  number  of  Aus- 
tralian gentlemen  farmers  had  joined  the  conversation 
by  this  time,  and  they  all  assured  me  that  such  a  thing 
as  a  thresher  is  almost  unknown  here.  Asked  where 
the  machine  came  from  that  harvested  and  threshed 
the  wheat  in  one  operation,  they  said  they  were  sup- 
plied by  the  International  Harvester  Co.,  of  America; 
also,  by  an  English  company.  I  was  compelled  to  con- 
fess I  had  never  seen  such  a  machine,  or  heard  of  one. 
Along  the  road  I  saw  numerous  wheat-fields  which  had 
evidently  been  treated  in  the  manner  indicated;  the 
gram  heads  had  been  frayed  off,  and  the  stalks  left 
standing,  for  sheep  pasturage.  The  gentlemen  farm- 
ers told  me  of  one  man  who  had  tried  a  new  experiment 
in  wheat-raising.  He  cleared  his  land,  but  did  not 
break,  or  plow  it,  as  we  say ;  instead,  he  drilled  in  his 
wheat  on  the  unbroken  land,  and  followed  the  drill 
with  some  sort  of  farm  implement  which  slightly  cov- 
ered the  seed ;  possibly  it  was  a  harrow — I  did  not  quite 
understand  the  term  used.  The  season  was  exception- 
ally favorable,  and  the  wheat  made  an  average  of  thir- 


138  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

teen  bushels  per  acre.  The  land  on  which  the  experi- 
ment was  tried  was  worth  about  $25  an  acre.  The  rain- 
fall here  varies  from  six  to  sixty  inches,  but  the  heavy 
rainfall  usually  comes  in  torrents,  when  it  is  not  needed. 
In  the  center  of  the  country,  at  points  farthest  from  the 
coast,  there  is  almost  no  rain  at  all.  We  were  passing 
through  what  is  possibly  the  best  section  of  Australia, 
and  it  looked  very  dry  to  me ;  I  saw  almost  no  rivers 
or  creeks.  It  reminded  me  of  India,  or  Colorado,  or 
California,  but  my  traveling  acquaintances  said :  "Ah, 
yes;  it  looks  dry  now,  after  two  months  of  drouth, 
but  when  the  rain  comes  it  will  look  as  green  as  your 
country."  I  said :  "It  is  evident  that  you  run  fewer 
sheep  per  acre  here  than  in  New  Zealand."  They  ad- 
mitted it,  but  said  the  volcanic  soil  of  New  Zealand 
was  much  inferior  to  the  chocolate  soil  of  Australia; 
New  Zealand  has  more  rain  than  Australia,  but  not 
as  good  a  soil,  a  fact  I  had  myself  noticed.  .  .  . 
Wheat  piled  on  the  ground  in  sacks,  seemed  very  shift- 
less to  me.  I  saw  no  grain  elevators,  such  as  we  have, 
and  when  the  wheat  is  shipped,  it  is  loaded  in  open  box 
cars;  no  protection  from  the  weather.  But  in  spite 
of  many  evidences  of  a  dry  country,  you  see  many  evi- 
dences of  prosperity  here,  too.  Australia  is  almost  as 
big  as  the  United  States,  but  has  only  five  million  peo- 
ple; it  doesn't  need  to  feed  a  dozen  sheep  per  acre. 
I  also  heard  much  of  irrigation  projects,  and  the  coun- 
try seems  to  be  booming.  .  .  .  At  8  A.  M.  we 
changed  to  another  train ;  to  a  railroad  with  a  gauge 
of  five  feet  three  inches.  The  standard  gauge  of  the 
world  is  four  feet  eight  and  a  half  inches;  the  usual 
narrow  gauge  is  three  feet  six  inches.  The  train  on  the 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          139 

broad-gauge — 5  feet  3  inches — had  a  diner,  but  we 
could  not  get  in,  so  we  ate  breakfast  at  a  railway  restau- 
rant. The  broad-gauge  train  also  had  a  parlor  car, 
in  which  we  had  reserved  seats,  and  were  very  com- 
fortable. We  stopped  every  two  or  three  hours,  to  per- 
mit the  passengers  to  drink  tea.  The  train  was  a  fine 
one,  but  it  could  not  be  compared  with  our  best  trains, 
and  was  badly  crowded,  as  is  the  usual  custom  over 
here  in  all  public  places.  At  ten  minutes  after  one  in 
the  afternoon,  we  reached  Melbourne. 


SATURDAY,  FEBRUARY  8. — At  Sydney,  we  had  heard 
of  107  in  the  shade  at  Melbourne,  but  found  the  weather 
very  pleasant.  In  a  very  gentlemanly  sort  of  way, 
Melbourne  and  Sydney  are  jealous  of  each  other.  They 
are  of  about  the  same  size,  with  Sydney  in  the  lead, 
and  forging  ahead  rapidly;  but  Melbourne  has  the 
capital,  and  this  is  a  bone  of  contention.  To  get  rid 
of  it,  there  is  a  plan  to  build  a  capital  in  the  interior, 
as  we  built  Washington  to  patch  up  the  quarrel  be- 
tween cities  anxious  for  the  national  capital.  But 
Melbourne  will  indefinitely  delay  building  a  capital 
city  in  the  sage-brush  of  the  interior;  I  have  heard 
this  guess  made  many  times.  .  .  .  I  have  been  par- 
ticularly pleased  with  the  hotels  in  Australia  and  New 
Zealand,  and  am  inclined  to  believe  that  Menzie's,  in 
Melbourne,  is  the  best  of  the  lot.  I  have  a  telephone 
in  my  room,  and  a  big  wide  bed,  and  the  meals  are  sur- 
prisingly good.  The  price  is  $3.60  per  day,  including 
everything.  I  was  recently  at  the  Sherman  House, 


140  TRAVEL  LETTERS  PROM 

in  Chicago,  and  paid  $3.50  per  day  for  a  room.  What 
we  call  "the  European  plan"  is  almost  unknown  at 
hotels  here.  .  .  .  Melbourne  is  a  better  town  than 
I  expected  to  find  it.  Its  citizens  admit  that  Sydney 
is  larger,  and  growing  more  rapidly;  indeed,  I  have 
heard  them  say  Sydney  will  continue  to  grow  more 
rapidly,  as  it  has  a  better  country  around  it.  But  Mel- 
bourne is  a  beautiful  city,  and  Sydney  has  nothing  to 
match  its  St.  Kilda  Road.  This  is  a  great  driveway 
leading  from  the  city  to  a  sort  of  Coney  Island.  This 
driveway  is  lined  with  flowers,  green  grass  and  beautiful 
homes.  And  I  did  not  see  a  bathing-beach  in  Sydney 
as  handsome  as  St.  Kilda  beach.  Melbourne  has  wider 
streets  than  Sydney,  and  seems  to  be  more  modern. 
"Don't  you  think,"  one  man  asked  me,  "that  Mel- 
bourne is  more  like  one  of  your  American  cities  than 
Sydney?"  The  people  here  are  as  familiar  as  the  peo- 
ple of  New  Zealand  with  the  fact  that  we  are  Americans, 
but  they  see  more  Americans,  and  are  not  so  much  in- 
terested in  them.  Every  man  I  talk  with  reminds  me 
that  I  am  an  American ;  always  politely.  I  went  yes- 
terday to  see  about  my  baggage.  "Don't  you  find 
our  system  almost  identical  with  yours  in  the  United 
States?"  the  very  agreeable  and  accommodating  bag- 
gage agent  asked.  And  the  system  of  handling  bag- 
gage here  is  the  same  as  our  system.  ...  I  think 
the  people  of  Melbourne  are  sick  and  tired  hearing  of 
Sydney's  beautiful  harbor ;  particularly  as  Melbourne's 
harbor  is  not  very  large.  There  is  a  great  bay  here, 
but  it  is  not  a  harbor ;  it  is  almost  as  much  of  an  open 
roadstead  as  Manila  bay.  .  .  .  Melbourne  has 
cable  cars,  but  the  system  was  not  adopted  because  of 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          141 

hills,  for  the  city  is  almost  flat.  I  enjoyed  riding  again 
in  the  front  end  of  a  grip-car,  as  I  used  to  do  in  the  old 
days  in  Kansas  City.  On  one  line,  the  fare  is  six  cents 
per  passenger  for  riding  the  shortest  distance.  I  saw 
one  short  electric  line ;  also,  one  horse-car  line.  .  .  . 
Years  ago,  the  boomers  declared  that  Melbourne  needed 
a  Convention  hall,  and  one  was  finally  built,  after  every 
citizen  had  been  bored  for  a  contribution,  and  soundly 
abused  because  he  did  not  give  more.  Now  the  boom- 
ers are  kept  busy  to  find  use  for  the  hall.  This  month 
it  is  the  scene  of  a  Manufacturers'  exhibition,  and  I  saw 
a  good  many  interesting  things  there  yesterday  after- 
noon. There  is  an  aquarium  in  connection ;  and  at  this 
place  I  saw  the  most  interesting  thing  I  have  seen  since 
leaving  home — a  monkey  mother  with  a  baby  four  or 
five  weeks  old.  Monkeys  always  interest  me,  but  this 
monkey  with  a  baby  was  so  much  like  a  human  mother 
that  I  watched  her  half  an  hour.  The  monkey  baby 
was  not  well,  and  the  mother  watched  over  it  pre- 
cisely as  a  human  mother  would  have  done.  Occa- 
sionally the  baby  played  with  its  toes,  as  you  have  seen 
human  babies  do.  The  mother  gave  all  her  attention 
to  the  baby;  she  did  not  neglect  it  for  a  moment. 
There  is  a  human  quality  about  monkeys  that  always 
attracts  me.  One  I  saw  this  morning  at  the  zoological 
garden  was  an  old  chap,  and  he  was  frowsy  and  irri- 
table, as  old  men  are,  and  the  younger  ones  were  afraid 
of  him,  and  scampered  out  of  his  way.  .  .  .  We 
are  still  meeting  "Sonoma"  passengers;  we  encoun- 
tered one  at  this  hotel  last  night — a  Mr.  Smart,  a  Lon- 
don publisher.  Another  passenger  on  the  "Sonoma" 
is  a  newspaper  man  here,  but  we  have  not  yet  seen  him. 


142  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

.  .  .  The  eggs  used  at  Menzie's  hotel  are  labeled. 
The  two  I  had  for  breakfast  were  marked  with  a  rub- 
ber stamp  in  this  fashion:  "A.  J.  Paine,  The  Sisters, 
Teremo ;  February  6,  1913."  .  .  .  This  morning, 
while  at  St.  Kilda  beach,  we  looked  at  the  many  ships 
in  Port  Melbourne,  and  distinguished  a  big  blue  fun- 
nel. It  belonged  to  the  "Anchises,"  of  the  Blue  Fun- 
nel line,  and  we  will  live  on  it  for  three  weeks,  beginning 
next  Wednesday.  It  started  from  Sydney  a  week  ago, 
but  we  will  join  it  at  Adelaide,  for  which  city  it  sails 
tonight.  ...  I  was  talking  today  with  an  in- 
telligent Australian,  and  he  says  that  in  three  or  four 
years  the  cost  of  living  here  has  increased  one-fourth, 
owing  to  the  advancing  prices  for  labor.  ...  In 
both  Sydney  and  Melbourne,  I  found  crowds  around 
employment  agencies.  This  surprised  me ;  I  thought 
every  man  who  wanted  work  here,  had  it.  ...  In 
coming  from  Sydney  by  rail,  we  saw  hundreds  of  piano- 
boxes  along  the  way.  Each  box  contained  an  adver- 
tisement for  the  Steck  piano.  It  was  a  new  use  for 
empty  piano-boxes.  .  .  .  Here,  when  a  doctor 
charges  a  big  fee  for  an  operation,  the  newspapers  make 
a  fuss  about  it.  The  Sydney  papers  were  full  of  a  sen- 
sation of  this  kind  the  day  I  left  there.  It  is  a  fashion 
that  might  be  copied  by  American  papers ;  great  out- 
rages are  perpetrated  by  some  doctors  in  the  United 
States,  and  nothing  is  said  about  it.  ...  I  have 
heard  a  great  deal  about  rabbits  in  Australia ;  they  are 
said  to  be  so  numerous  as  to  be  a  curse.  Still,  while 
riding  through  the  country  yesterday  on  a  railroad  train, 
I  saw  two  boys  out  hunting.  One  of  them  had  three 
rabbits,  and  the  other  had  four.  Considering  the  rab- 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          143 

bit  stories  I  have  heard,  I  thought  the  number  quite 
modest.  At  another  place,  I  saw  a  boy  out  hunting, 
and  he  had  but  one  rabbit.  Australia  looks  about  as 
I  expected  it  to  look,  except  the  rabbits.  ...  At 
the  zoological  garden  in  Melbourne,  there  is  an  exhibit 
labeled:  "American  Cats."  And  that's  exactly  what 
they  are :  plain  cats,  such  as  you  see  around  any  Amer- 
ican home.  .  .  .  At  4 : 15  we  drove  to  the  station, 
and  a  quarter  of  an  hour  later  left  for  Adelaide,  capital 
of  South  Australia ;  distance,  508  miles.  The  train  is 
a  better  one  than  that  running  between  Sydney  and 
Melbourne,  and  we  were  told  that  the  sleeper  in  which 
we  had  engaged  berths  would  go  through.  The  railroad 
is  owned  by  the  government,  and  the  gauge  is  five  feet 
three  inches;  eight  and  a  half  inches  wider  than  our 
standard  gauge.  But  the  cars  do  not  seem  wider  than 
ours,  and  certainly  they  were  not  so  heavy.  The  rails 
were  also  light,  although  the  train  made  good  time. 
There  was  a  dining-car  attached,  and  at  6  o'clock  we 
had  an  excellent  dinner,  at  96  cents  each.  There  were 
only  four  others  in  the  dining-car,  and  we  had  com- 
partments to  ourselves  hi  the  sleeping-car.  The  com- 
partments are  for  two,  but  travel  here  is  always  light 
Saturday  night,  I  am  told.  With  a  room  to  myself, 
I  began  almost  having  a  good  tune,  particularly  as  I 
have  become  accustomed  to  the  pronunciations  of  the 
people,  and  they  no  longer  distress  me.  On  the  dining- 
car  bill  of  fare,  this  was  printed :  "Waiters  are  not  per- 
mitted to  accept  tips,  on  pain  of  dismissal."  But  when 
I  offered  our  waiter  a  tip,  he  ran  the  risk  of  dismissal, 
and  took  it.  ...  The  trainmen  told  me  that  they 
are  often  compelled  to  work  sixteen  hours  a  day,  and 


144  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

that  they  receive  a  shilling  an  hour :  that  is,  for  a  day 
of  sixteen  hours,  $3.84.  Government  ownership  of 
railways  is  certainly  a  mistake,  so  far  as  the  men  are 
concerned.  The  government  can  bluff  employees  easier 
than  a  private  employer.  ...  I  shall  always  re- 
member the  town  of  Ballarat,  the  largest  interior  town 
in  Australia,  with  a  population  of  40,000.  It  was  at 
this  town  that  I  lost  my  luck,  and  a  man  was  assigned 
to  my  compartment.  But  Adelaide's  luck  continued, 
and  she  had  a  compartment  to  herself  all  the  way.  In 
addition  to  having  towns  named  for  her,  she  is  lucky 
hi  other  ways.  I  never  have  towns  named  for  me; 
you  never  heard  of  a  town  named  Ed.,  did  you?  .  .  . 
We  passed  through  one  section  of  country  which  seemed 
to  be  noted  for  potato-growing.  I  remember  we  reached 
it  after  climbing  a  mountain  of  considerable  height, 
and  the  potato-fields  continued  many  miles.  This  must 
be  the  best  section  of  Australia,  since  the  railroad  did 
not  run  more  than  thirty  to  sixty  miles  from  the  sea, 
which  supplies  the  few  rains  Australia  has.  But  the 
country  looked  very  dry,  and  the  soil  thin.  .  .  . 
We  see  no  barns  on  the  farms ;  in  the  United  States, 
travelers  remark  that  the  barns  are  often  huge,  and  the 
residences  pitifully  small.  Possibly  one  explanation 
is  that  stock  run  out  all  winter  here ;  it  is  not  necessary 
to  house  them,  or  winter-feed.  But  the  fact  remains 
that  Australia  has  no  country  like  the  best  parts  of 
Kansas,  Iowa,  Illinois,  Missouri,  Wisconsin,  Ohio,  or  a 
dozen  other  states  that  might  be  mentioned.  Aus- 
tralia somehow  reminds  me  of  California,  where  an  ex- 
ceptionally clever  people  have  made  a  great  deal  out 
of  a  semi-arid  country.  The  farmers  I  know  pay  little 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          145 

attention  to  agricultural  reports.  The  Australian 
farmers  do,  and  greedily  devour  everything  printed 
that  concerns  their  business.  .  .  .  The  dining-car 
in  which  we  ate  dinner  has  two  sections  :  first  and  sec- 
ond class.  We  paid  four  shillings  for  dinner,  and  the 
second-class  passengers  paid  two. 


SUNDAY,  FEBRUARY  9. — When  I  awoke  this  morning, 
the  train  was  running  rapidly  through  the  bleakest 
country  I  have  seen  in  Australia  or  New  Zealand. 
This  is  the  land  settlers  are  encouraged  to  "take  up," 
and  improve.  It  did  not  look  to  be  worth  ten  dollars 
a  quarter-section,  but  occasionally  I  saw  a  settler's 
cabin.  A  trainman  told  me  that  the  original  settler 
rarely  did  well,  but  that  the  man  who  bought  him  out 
for  almost  nothing,  often  did  quite  well.  Suddenly 
we  came  in  sight  of  the  Murray  river,  the  only  con- 
siderable stream  in  Australia,  and  navigable  for  small 
boats  a  thousand  miles  above  where  I  saw  it.  Soon 
after,  we  crossed  the  river  at  a  little  town,  and  stopped 
for  breakfast.  From  the  railroad  bridge  I  saw  several 
steamboats,  and  rather  extensive  facilities  for  loading 
and  unloading  freight.  .  .  .  Remember  that  in 
passing  through  the  bleak,  dry  country  referred  to 
above,  we  were  not  fifty  miles  from  the  sea,  and  that 
the  rainfall  decreases  toward  the  interior  of  the  coun- 
try. .  .  .  This  morning  we  began  seeing  plenty 
of  rabbits ;  many  tunes,  forty  or  fifty  were  in  view  at 
the  same  time,  and  we  are  now  satisfied.  ...  A 
gentleman  on  the  train  who  lives  in  the  Fiji  Islands, 


146  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

says  that  not  long  ago  there,  more  than  thirty-six  inches 
of  rain  fell  in  one  day;  the  government  rain-gauge 
records  thirty-six  inches,  but  this  filled,  and  ran  over. 
It  is  a  pity  that  the  industrious  Australians  cannot 
have  some  of  the  rain  that  goes  to  waste  in  the  Fiji 
Islands,  where  the  inhabitants  are  shiftless.  .  .  . 
Our  first  view  of  Adelaide  was  from  a  mountain,  where 
the  railroad  runs.  It  is  a  city  of  180,000,  the  capital  of 
South  Australia,  and  located  on  an  extensive  plain, 
between  the  sea  and  the  mountain.  Adelaide  is  not 
located  on  the  sea,  as  I  had  imagined ;  its  shipping  is 
done  at  Port  Adelaide,  twelve  miles  away.  We  reached 
the  city  at  10  A.  M.,  and  went  to  the  Grand  Central 
Hotel,  a  large,  new  place,  but  we  were  almost  the  only 
guests;  at  one  time,  we  saw  only  two  others  in  the 
dining-room,  and  never  more  than  fifteen.  The  din- 
ing-room is  very  large  and  very  fine,  and  a  good  or- 
chestra plays  for  dinner,  but  there  are  almost  no  guests. 
On  our  floor  we  see  no  one ;  we  have  it  to  ourselves. 
We  like  the  quiet,  but  the  proprietor  of  the  hotel  must 
be  suffering.  We  asked  a  waiter  for  an  explanation, 
and  he  said  Saturday,  Sunday  and  Monday  are  usually 
quiet  days.  The  town  is  much  like  the  hotel;  it  is 
not  crowded.  Here,  as  elsewhere  in  Australia  and  New 
Zealand,  the  people  are  exceptionally  polite.  We  were 
standing  on  the  street  this  afternoon,  somewhat  con- 
fused about  the  proper  car  to  take,  when  a  policeman 
stepped  up  and  asked  if  he  could  do  anything  for  us. 
I  do  not  know  where  the  people  learned  their  excep- 
tional politeness ;  they  certainly  did  not  learn  it  from 
the  mother  country,  England.  ...  In  this  dry 
country,  people  like  to  hover  around  the  words  "river" 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          147 

and  "creek."  In  a  morning  paper,  I  looked  at  a  list 
of  towns,  and  the  first  three  were  Tennant's  Creek, 
Brock's  Creek,  and  Powell's  Creek.  .  .  .  The  news- 
papers here  are  very  prosperous,  as  they  are  lately  all 
over  the  world.  Their  great  prosperity,  I  am  told,  has 
come  within  the  past  twenty  years,  and  that  is  true 
everywhere.  One  Adelaide  paper  prints  a  depart- 
ment entitled:  "Fifty  Years  Ago,"  a  brief  re'sume'  of 
events  half  a  century  old.  One  item  reads :  "A  spe- 
cial harvest  holiday  train  will  leave  Kapunda  for  Ade- 
laide on  Thursday,  on  account  of  the  Agricultural  So- 
ciety's exhibition,"  etc. ;  so  it  seems  that  Adelaide  is 
not  at  all  youthful.  .  .  .  An  advertisement  in  the 
morning  paper  read:  "Wanted — Position  by  bird 
scorer."  .  .  .  Over  here,  the  word  Trust,  which 
we  despise,  is  used  without  the  slightest  delicacy.  The 
street  railway  company  is  unblushingly  called  the  Tram- 
way Trust  in  its  own  announcements.  And  just  now 
there  is  some  excitement  because  the  Tramway  Trust, 
in  a  disagreement  with  its  employees,  refused  to  accept 
arbitration.  All  the  papers  are  full  of  labor-trouble 
news.  It  seems  to  me  that  in  the  United  States  we 
do  not  hear  half  as  much  about  labor  disturbances  as 
we  hear  here.  Every  workingman  who  is  not  on  strike, 
is  discussing  one,  with  a  view  of  forcing  another  in- 
crease in  wages.  But  labor  rioting  is  not  as  frequent 
or  serious  here  as  in  the  United  States ;  there  are  prac- 
tically no  "scabs"  to  assault — it  is  a  rare  thing  to  find 
a  working  man  or  woman  who  does  not  belong  to  a 
union. 


148  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

MONDAY,  FEBRUARY  10. — No  country  in  the  world 
makes  more  of  parks,  gardens  and  hospitals  than  Aus- 
tralia. And  probably  no  other  country  makes  as  much 
of  the  Salvation  Army.  About  the  first  thing  I  saw 
on  my  arrival  in  Adelaide  was  a  street  meeting  of  the 
Salvation  Army,  a  feature  of  which  was  a  good  brass 
band  of  forty  men.  Two  other  things  travelers  from 
the  United  States  will  notice  here :  drouth  and  pros- 
perity. I  have  seen  no  poor  people;  no  evidence  of 
poverty — yet  how  dry  the  weather  is!  In  the  section 
of  country  where  I  live,  we  have  had  two  very  dry 
summers  in  the  past  thirty-five  years ;  but  during  those 
summers  the  country  did  not  look  as  parched  as  the 
country  looks  everywhere  hi  Australia.  .  .  .  About 
the  only  vegetables  we  get  at  the  hotels  here  are  pota- 
toes, cabbage,  and  canned  beans.  Tomatoes  are 
served  occasionally,  but  they  are  smaller  than  those  we 
get  at  home,  and  not  so  good.  On  the  streets,  we  see 
many  carts  selling  fruit,  including  strawberries.  .  .  . 
The  city  of  Adelaide  and  the  young  lady  in  whose  honor 
it  was  named,  are  very  much  alike  in  one  particular ; 
both  are  very  quiet.  We  see  no  crowds  here :  we  had 
plenty  of  room  on  the  train  coming  here,  we  have  plenty 
of  room  in  the  hotel,  and  we  have  plenty  of  room  on  the 
streets  when  we  ride  or  walk  about.  This  afternoon 
we  went  riding  hi  an  automobile,  and  everywhere  we 
found  it  quiet  and  dusty.  There  are  no  crowds  on  the 
street  cars ;  and  it  may  be  mentioned  incidentally  that 
the  street  railway  system  of  Adelaide  could  not  be  more 
complete  than  it  is.  One  may  go  to  any  nook  or  cor- 
ner of  the  city  in  a  clean  electric  car,  and  one  line  runs 
to  a  seaside  resort,  a  distance  of  eight  or  nine  miles. 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          149 

Fare,  ten  cents.  All  the  cities  in  Australia  have  bet- 
ter street-railway  accommodations  than  the  country 
has  steam-railway  accommodations;  it  seems  to  me 
that  the  steam  railways  are  not  as  numerous  or  efficient 
as  the  country  demands,  whereas  I  have  everywhere 
remarked  the  excellence  of  street  railways.  ...  In 
the  United  States,  the  privately  owned  railways  cross 
the  country  from  north  to  south,  and  from  east  to  west, 
but  the  government-owned  railways  have  not  done  as 
much  for  Australia.  Comparing  Australia  with  the 
United  States,  there  is  no  railway  across  the  continent, 
whereas  we  have  five  or  six  systems;  nor  is  there  a 
railway  here  crossing  the  continent  from  north  to 
south.  The  Australian  railways  fringe  the  populous 
coast  for  a  distance  of  fourteen  or  fifteen  hundred 
miles ;  they  take  few  risks,  and  do  not  attempt  to  make 
fruitful  districts  out  of  arid  districts,  as  do  the  pri- 
vately owned  railways  in  thfc  United  States.  Our  rail- 
ways have  done  more  to  develop  the  country  than  the 
government  has  done.  Nor  do  the  government-owned 
railways  in  Australia  move  perishable  freight  more 
promptly :  at  many  stations  along  the  road  from  Syd- 
ney to  Adelaide,  I  heard  complaints  because  the  rail- 
way company  did  not  provide  cars  in  which  to  ship 
wheat  piled  on  the  ground.  And  when  a  car  is  pro- 
vided, it  is  a  small  open  flat-car,  and  does  not  hold 
much  more  than  a  big  wagon.  So  far  as  I  have  been 
able  to  make  out,  railway  rates  are  a  little  higher  here 
than  in  the  United  States,  and  the  service  very  much 
poorer.  .  .  .  We  think  we  notice  that  women  are 
rather  better  dressed  in  Australia  than  in  New  Zealand, 
and  possibly  a  little  better  looking.  ...  In  every 


150  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

hotel-dining  room  here,  we  are  always  given  ice-water ; 
the  waiters  have  heard  that  Americans  like  it. 


TUESDAY,  FEBRUARY  11. — I  celebrated  my  arrival 
in  Adelaide  with  a  slight  illness,  and  the  hotel  people 
took  quite  an  interest  in  me.  The  manager  sent  his 
regards,  and  wanted  to  know  how  I  was,  and  when  I 
went  to  the  bath-room  I  usually  met  the  maid,  who 
spoke  to  me  by  name,  and  hoped  I  was  better.  Hotel 
servants  here  always  know  the  names  of  guests.  Ade- 
laide took  very  good  care  of  me,  assisted  by  the  maid 
on  our  floor.  I  told  them  that  if  they  looked  after  me 
as  faithfully  as  Mr.  Adams  looked  after  his  wife  on  the 
"Sonoma,"  I  should  feel  satisfied.  Mr.  Adams  was 
an  honor  to  his  sex ;  his  wife  was  ill  from  the  time  she 
left  Honolulu  until  her  arrival  in  Sydney,  and  during 
all  that  tune  Mr.  Adams  was  a  marvel  of  devotion; 
even  the  women  said  he  should  really  take  a  little  rest. 
But  he  would  never  leave  his  wife's  side  except  when 
the  women  went  down  to  sit  with  her ;  and  even  then, 
he  walked  about  the  decks  in  an  obscure  place,  and 
didn't  seem  to  be  longing  for  pleasure  or  company. 
And  Mr.  Adams  was  no  amateur  husband;  he  told 
me  he  had  been  married  before.  There  was  something 
about  Mr.  Adams  which  convinced  me  that,  had  oppor- 
tunity presented,  he  could  have  played  a  stiff  game  of 
cards  in  the  smoking-room,  and  bluffed  his  competitors 
to  a  standstill,  but  with  a  sick  wife  on  his  hands  he 
was  gentleness  itself.  He  didn't  propose  to  be  talked 
about  by  the  women  on  board,  and  I  think  he  was  the 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          151 

hero  of  that  particular  voyage  of  the  "Sonoma."  .  .  . 
This  has  been  as  hot  a  day  as  I  have  ever  experienced 
anywhere,  and  the  tea-drinking  has  been  enormous. 
At  4  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  we  were  attracted  by  a 
sign  reading,  "Strawberries  and  cream,"  and  the  place 
was  crowded  with  women  shoppers  drinking  tea.  No 
one  was  buying  ice-cream,  or  the  "American  soda- 
water"  advertised,  but  all  were  drinking  tea;  every 
woman  was  served  with  a  pot,  and  usually  she  drank 
two  cups.  This  is  the  universal  rule  here ;  tea  in  the 
afternoon.  When  we  went  back  to  the  hotel,  the  girl 
clerk  was  taking  her  afternoon  tea,  which  had  been 
brought  to  her  from  the  kitchen.  By-the-way,  busi- 
ness is  picking  up  at  the  Grand  Central;  thirty-one 
came  hi  to  luncheon  today.  The  hotel  could  easily 
accommodate  three  hundred.  All  the  other  hotels  we 
have  visited  have  been  crowded.  Before  I  leave  Ade- 
laide I  must  ask  some  one  what  the  trouble  is  with  the 
Grand  Central.  Perhaps  one  trouble  is,  it  has  rooms 
with  baths,  and  other  up-to-date  improvements.  .  .  . 
The  best  exhibit  at  the  Adelaide  zoological  garden  is  the 
roses;  I  doubt  if  the  famous  rose  show  at  Portland, 
Oregon,  can  show  a  greater  variety  or  finer  flowers.  It 
seems  to  me  that  one-half  of  the  area  of  Adelaide  is 
taken  up  with  parks,  zoological  gardens,  botanical  gar- 
dens, hospitals,  museums,  playgrounds,  and  other 
public  utilities,  and  in  the  mountains  not  far  away  is  a 
national  park  of  thousands  of  acres.  The  people  here 
do  not  neglect  exercise  or  amusement.  You  see  almost 
as  many  people  in  the  parks  on  Monday  as  on  Sunday. 
.  .  .  Another  peculiarity  here  is  that  in  all  small 
orchestras  the  flute  is  used  instead  of  the  clarinet.  I 


152  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

have  not  heard  a  clarinet  in  Australasia,  whereas  every 
orchestra  hi  the  United  States  has  one.  Music  is  about 
the  same  everywhere ;  we  hear  the  same  music  here  that 
we  might  hear  at  home,  in  London,  Japan,  India,  or 
elsewhere.  One  evening,  at  dinner,  the  orchestra 
played  "Every  Little  Movement  Has  a  Meaning  of 
Its  Own,"  which  is  heard  everywhere  hi  America,  and 
we  coaxed  the  leader  to  play  it  again,  for  the  luxury  of 
being  homesick.  All  the  hotel  orchestras  seem  to  be 
paid  by  the  guests ;  anyway,  we  always  put  something 
in  a  plate  we  find  in  front  of  the  leader.  .  .  .  We 
find  few  American  publications  in  Australia.  The  La- 
dies' Home  Journal  we  see  in  nearly  all  bookstores,  and 
somewhere  we  found  a  real-estate  agent  displaying  the 
Journal's  pictures  of  houses  properly  and  improperly 
painted.  The  Saturday  Evening  Post  is  seen  less  fre- 
quently, and  the  American  Magazine  and  Cosmopolitan 
occasionally.  A  lady  in  New  Zealand  told  me  she  read 
the  Ladies'  Home  Journal  regularly,  and  greatly  ad- 
mired it,  and  that  it  is  well  known  among  the  women 
of  her  country.  We  see  few  American  books  at  the 
bookstores;  the  bulk  of  them  are  published  in  Eng- 
land. .  .  .  We  are  becoming  tolerably  tired  of 
the  kangaroo.  Every  city  has  a  zoological  garden,  and 
a  big  collection  of  kangaroos.  Also,  a  big  collection 
of  an  animal  called  the  Wallaby,  which  is  so  near  like 
the  kangaroo  that  a  tired,  hurried  and  indifferent  trav- 
eler does  not  distinguish  one  from  the  other.  Then 
there  is  the  kangaroo  rat,  and  the  kangaroo  idea  is  car- 
ried out  hi  two  or  three  other  ways.  .  .  .  We 
Americans  shouldn't  laugh  too  heartily  because  Aus- 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          153 

tralia  was  originally  a  penal  colony.  In  the  days  prior 
to  1776,  England,  instead  of  keeping  evil-doers  in  prison 
at  home,  sent  them  to  work  on  the  farms  or  plantations 
in  America.  After  the  Revolution,  when  convicts  could 
no  longer  be  sent  to  America,  they  were  sent  to  Aus- 
tralia. In  1787,  ten  ships  were  sent  to  Australia.  The 
ships  contained  a  thousand  persons,  eight  hundred  of 
them  convicts,  both  men  and  women,  and  the  remainder 
were  soldiers  and  marines  to  guard  them.  The  fleet 
landed  at  the  present  site  of  Sydney,  and  thus  that  fine 
city  of  more  than  half  a  million  people  was  founded. 
.  .  .  The  boomerang,  of  which  we  hear  much,  is  a 
native  Australian  weapon  made  of  hard  wood.  It  is 
made  in  peculiar  shape,  and  the  black  fellows  (accord- 
ing to  the  story)  throw  it  in  such  a  wonderful  way  that 
it  hits  the  object  it  is  aimed  at,  and  returns  to  the  hand 
of  the  thrower.  I  doubt  the  story ;  such  a  feat  as  that 
described  is  impossible.  We  have  seen  no  native 
blacks  here,  and  they  are  scarce  in  the  ulterior.  .  .  . 
The  years  1839  and  1840  were  years  of  terrible  drouth 
in  Australia,  and  cattle  and  sheep  were  killed  for  their 
hides  and  tallow.  Ten  years  later  came  a  drouth  still 
more  terrible.  Then  in  February  came  a  day  which 
is  remembered  as  Black  Thursday.  The  wind  had 
been  blowing  a  hot  gale  for  days,  and  somehow  a  fire 
started.  This  swept  over  the  parched  earth  with  re- 
lentless fury,  and  the  country  was  almost  burned  up ; 
forest  trees,  farmhouses,  wild  animals,  cattle  and  sheep, 
and  many  men,  women  and  children,  were  consumed. 
When  ram  finally  came,  it  came  in  such  torrents  that 
nearly  everything  left  by  the  fire  was  swept  away  by 


154  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

floods.  Australia  has  always  had  a  battle  with  drouth 
and  hot  winds,  but  has  steadily  prospered  in  spite  of 
these  drawbacks.  Its  people  are  learning  what  to  do, 
and  what  not  to  do,  and  great  tracts  of  land  formerly 
worthless  are  now  productive.  This  is  true  every- 
where ;  it  is  true  in  our  own  western  states  and  terri- 
tories. In  the  United  States  the  rain  belt  is  not  ex- 
tending westward,  but  the  intelligence  belt  is.  ... 
The  shop  windows  of  a  strange  city  are  an  interesting 
exhibit  to  a  traveler ;  they  are  a  complete  history  of  the 
industrial  habits  of  the  inhabitants.  The  most  inter- 
esting window  I  have  seen  hi  Adelaide  contains  photo- 
graphs of  amateur  Lady  Bathers.  A  clever  genius  who 
runs  a  bathing-house  at  the  beach  offered  prizes  of 
twenty  guineas  to  the  Lady  Bathers  receiving  the  great- 
est number  of  votes  for  perfection  of  figure.  A  great 
many  young  women  who  had  a  secret  notion  that  they 
had  Great  Shapes,  entered  the  contest,  and  an  enter- 
prising photographer  is  displaying  pictures  of  the  lead- 
ing contestants.  All  the  contestants  must  have  visited 
the  gallery  and  posed  for  pictures  in  bathing  cos- 
tumes. All  of  them  pose  in  imitation  of  some  classic 
figure,  and  the  result  is  very  amusing,  for  an  amateur 
showing  her  figure  is  quite  as  amusing  as  an  amateur 
appearing  in  a  concert  or  in  a  dramatic  performance. 
Some  of  the  figures  are  so  bad  that  you  wonder  their 
owners  ever  thought  they  were  good,  and  all  the  poses 
are  so  awkward  that  the  display  is  extremely  amusing. 
You  have  no  doubt  been  familiar  with  contests  where 
young  ladies  ran  for  prizes  as  the  most  beautiful  woman, 
or  the  most  popular  woman,  in  town,  and  wondered 
that  the  contestants  considered  themselves  either  beau- 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          155 

tiful  or  popular,  but  women  running  a  race  for  per- 
fection of  figure,  and  submitting  their  charms  to  the 
public,  is  a  still  more  amazing  performance. 


WEDNESDAY,  FEBRUARY  12. — An  unusual  thing  in 
Australian  towns  is  that  seed  stores  sell  a  great  variety 
of  flowering  plants;  instead  of  buying  sweet  pea 
seeds  here,  you  buy  sweet  pea  plants  five  of  six  inches 
high.  At  one  store  in  Adelaide,  I  saw  a  dozen  differ- 
ent varieties  of  plants  put  up  in  small  bunches,  and 
offered  at  reasonable  prices.  .  .  .  Australia  and 
New  Zealand  are  very  Progressive,  when  active  and 
powerful  labor  unions  are  concerned,  but  not  a  great 
deal  is  done  for  the  quiet  and  patient  farmers ;  there 
are  no  rural  mail  routes  in  either  country.  .  .  . 
There  are  more  banks,  trust  companies,  loan  compa- 
nies, etc.,  in  Australian  cities,  it  seems  to  me,  than  else- 
where. In  some  sections  of  the  large  towns  I  see  al- 
most nothing  but  financial  institutions  for  blocks.  .  .  . 
The  people  here  not  only  know  I  am  from  the  United 
States,  but  they  know  what  section  I  am  from.  "You 
are  not  a  New-Yorker?"  a  gentleman  said  to  me  this 
morning.  I  told  him  I  was  from  Kansas.  "My  guess 
was  Denver,"  he  said.  He  came  within  five  hundred 
miles  of  locating  me.  ...  At  all  the  hotels,  we 
have  noticed  that  the  maids  have  false  teeth.  There 
is  something  in  the  water  that  is  injurious  to  teeth ; 
you  see  advertisements  in  the  papers  offering  a  remedy. 
In  Australia,  probably  you  see  three  times  as  many 
women  with  full  sets  of  false  teeth  as  you  see  elsewhere. 
And  dentists  here  are  like  dentists  everywhere,  in  that 


156  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

their  false  teeth  can  always  be  promptly  detected.  .  .  . 
The  duck-bill,  interesting  because  it  is  an  egg-laying 
mammal,  is  found  in  Australia.  It  is  supposed  that 
at  one  time  all  mammals  were  egg-laying ;  later,  these 
early  mammals  were  replaced  by  more  highly  organ- 
ized descendants.  The  duck-bill  has  a  bill  like  a  duck, 
fur  like  a  mole,  webbed  feet,  and  is  about  as  large  as  a 
terrier  dog.  It  burrows  in  the  bank,  as  a  muskrat  does, 
and  thousands  of  learned  men  have  journeyed  to  Aus- 
tralia to  see  it,  as  an  interesting  and  rare  link  in  the 
chain  of  life.  An  ant-eater  having  a  bear-like  snout, 
and  also  an  egg-laying  mammal,  is  found  in  Austra- 
lia. Egg-laying  mammals  are  found  nowhere  elese  in 
the  world.  ...  I  have  heard  it  said  that  the 
women  of  Australia  are  a  year  or  two  behind  New  York 
or  London  in  the  fashions.  I  do  not  know  as  to  that, 
but  it  is  certainly  true  that  the  shop  girls  in  Adelaide 
are  just  adopting  the  big  bunches  of  hah*  with  which 
American  shop  girls  disfigured  their  heads  a  good  many 
months  ago.  ...  At  4  o'clock  this  afternoon  we  walked 
to  the  railroad  station,  and  took  a  train  for  the  Outer 
Harbor,  to  go  on  board  the  "Anchises."  The  distance 
is  fourteen  miles,  and  the  train  made  so  many  stops  that 
we  did  not  get  our  first  sight  of  the  ship  until  an  hour 
later.  It  was  lying  not  a  hundred  yards  from  the  sta- 
tion where  we  left  the  train,  and  we  went  aboard  at 
once.  The  Outer  Harbor  is  a  lonely  place;  nothing 
there  except  a  railroad  station  and  a  loading-dock. 
Most  of  the  passengers  had  joined  the  ship  at  Sydney 
or  Melbourne,  and  looked  us  over  critically  as  we  walked 
up  the  gang-plank.  I  found  I  had  a  large  room  to  my- 
self, on  the  upper  deck,  and  Adelaide  had  one  just  like 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          157 

it.  Our  baggage  having  been  sent  in  the  morning,  we 
found  it  waiting  for  us  in  our  rooms.  There  are  120 
first-class  passengers ;  no  second-class,  and  no  steerage. 
The  ship  is  two  years  old,  508  feet  long,  with  an  un- 
usual beam  (which  means  width,  and  width  means 
steadiness  at  sea),  and  altogether  we  are  well  pleased. 
.  .  .  An  old  gentleman  and  his  wife  attracted  our 
particular  attention  because  so  many  had  come  to  see 
them  off.  There  were  many  children  and  grandchil- 
dren, and  after  the  whistle  had  warned  all  visitors  to 
go  ashore,  we  stood  beside  the  old  gentleman  and  his 
wife  at  the  rail,  looking  at  the  crowd.  A  woman  in  the 
crowd  below  was  evidently  a  married  daughter  of  the 
old  couple  we  admired,  and  she  had  a  nurse  girl  with 
her,  and  the  nurse  girl  was  carrying  a  baby. 

"Mother,"  the  married  daughter  called  out,  softly, 
"did  you  say  good-by  to  Daisy?" 

Daisy  was  the  nurse  girl,  and  the  fine  old  mother  said 
she  had  said  good-by  to  Daisy,  but,  to  make  it  good 
measure,  she  said  good-by  to  her  again.  .  .  .  My 
room  is  considerably  larger  than  the  one  I  shared  with 
three  others  on  the  "Maunganui."  I  have  two  chairs, 
a  clothes  closet,  and  a  chest  of  drawers,  all  of  which 
were  lacking  on  the  "Maunganui."  On  that  ship  I 
hadn't  a  single  hook  on  which  to  hang  my  clothing; 
in  my  room  on  the  "Anchises"  there  are  fifteen  hooks. 
If  I  live  fifty  years  longer,  at  the  end  of  the  forty-ninth 
year  I  shall  still  be  telling  with  indignation  of  my  room 
on  the  "Maunganui."  Four  men  in  a  room  nine  by 
ten  feet  is  as  bad  as  asking  four  men  to  use  one  bath- 
tub at  the  same  time.  ...  At  exactly  6  P.  M.  we 
got  away  as  advertised. 


158  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

THURSDAY,  FEBRUARY  13. — When  we  awoke  this 
morning,  rain  was  falling,  and  a  heavy  sea  running,  but 
owing  to  the  ship's  unusual  width,  60  feet,  we  did  not 
mind  the  motion,  and  went  down  to  breakfast  hi  good 
humor.  One  of  the  stewards  informs  me  that  he  has 
worked  on  many  ships,  and  that  the  "Anchises"  is  the 
steadiest  of  them  all.  The  weather  is  bad,  but  not 
many  are  seasick.  ...  A  lady  at  our  table  has 
five  children  and  two  nurses  with  her.  "And,"  added 
her  husband,  "at  sea,  five  are  quite  enough."  These 
children  are  all  boys,  except  one,  and  this  girl  is  known 
as  Tom,  she  is  such  a  Tom-boy.  The  girl  knows  noth- 
ing about  girls,  and  has  never  played  with  them,  and 
the  mother  is  rather  glad  of  it :  usually  a  Tom-boy  hu- 
miliates a  mother.  .  .  .  The  passengers  are  very 
nice;  a  better  lot  than  we  met  on  the  "Maheno"  or 
"Maunganui."  Most  of  them  are  making  the  long 
journey  to  England.  .  .  .  We  are  now  in  the  great 
Australian  Bight,  which,  on  the  map,  makes  Austra- 
lia look  upside  down.  The  rough  weather  of  the  voy- 
age is  usually  encountered  in  the  Bight.  ...  In 
1806,  a  certain  Captain  Bligh  was  appointed  governor 
of  Australia.  This  is  the  Bligh  associated  with  the 
mutiny  of  the  ship  "Bounty,"  one  of  the  most  thrilling 
stories  of  the  sea.  Some  tune  prior  to  1806,  Bligh,  as 
commander  of  H.  M.  S.  "Bounty,"  was"  sent  to  the 
South  Sea  Islands  after  trees  and  plants  to  be  taken  to 
the  West  Indies ;  the  English  have  always  been  noted 
for  trying  to  improve  their  possessions.  I  have  forgot- 
ten the  name  of  the  island  where  Bligh  went  with  the 
"Bounty,"  but  will  call  it  Island  No.  1.  He  remained 
there  a  considerable  tune ;  long  enough  for  his  sailors 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          159 

to  become  well  acquainted  with  the  natives.  Finally, 
when  the  " Bounty"  sailed  for  the  West  Indies,  the 
sailors  were  mutinous,  as  they  had  made  friends  in 
Island  No.  1,  and  did  not  wish  to  leave.  Captain  Bligh 
was  a  hard  man,  and,  noting  the  discontent  of  the  sail- 
ors, gave  them  extra  duties ;  if  there  was  nothing  else 
for  them  to  do,  he  made  them  polish  the  anchor.  One 
night,  as  Captain  Bligh  sat  in  his  cabin,  he  was  seized 
from  behind  by  three  sailors.  He  was  bluntly  told  to 
get  into  one  of  the  small  boats,  and  row  where  he 
pleased ;  the  sailors  said  they  were  going  back  to  their 
native  wives  and  friends  at  Island  No.  1.  Seventeen 
members  of  the  crew,  including  all  the  officers,  chose 
to  go  with  the  captain,  and,  with  a  scant  supply  of 
water  and  provisions,  were  set  adrift  in  an  open  boat. 
Captain  Bligh  was  cruel  and  ill-tempered,  but  an  able 
seaman,  and,  after  a  voyage  of  four  thousand  miles, 
landed  on  the  coast  of  Java.  Most  of  his  companions 
died  as  a  result  of  the  hardships  through  which  they 
passed.  .  .  .  But  the  history  of  the  mutineers  is 
still  more  interesting.  They  returned  to  Island  No.  1 
in  the  "Bounty,"  and,  collecting  their  wives  and  other 
particular  friends  among  the  natives,  set  sail  for  a  re- 
mote island  one  of  them  knew  about.  I  have  forgotten 
the  name  of  this  island,  too,  though  it  is  possibly  Pit- 
cairn,  but  I  shall  call  it  Island  No.  2.  Arriving  at 
Island  No.  2,  the  "Bounty"  was  burned,  after  being 
robbed  of  all  its  guns,  furniture  and  supplies.  .  .  . 
The  mutineers  quarreled  a  good  deal  among  them- 
selves ;  mainly  about  women.  Every  sailor  had  two  or 
three  wives,  and  the  natives  of  Island  No.  1  did  not  get 
along  very  well  with  the  natives  of  Island  No.  2.  Many 


160  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

murders  were  committed,  and  at  the  end  of  twenty 
years  only  two  of  the  original  mutineers  remained. 
These  two  had  scores  of  half-breed  children,  many  of 
them  grown.  .  .  .  One  day  a  sailing-ship  stopped 
at  Island  No.  2,  the  first  seen  there  since  the  mutineers 
landed,  many  years  before.  The  captain  knew  the 
story  of  the  "Bounty,"  and  rightly  guessed  that  the  two 
old  sailors  must  have  been  members  of  the  mutinous 
crew.  On  his  return  to  England,  he  reported  his  dis- 
covery, and  gave  the  authorities  a  chart  by  which  the 
lonely  island  might  be  found.  Soon  after,  a  ship  was 
dispatched  to  arrest  and  bring  back  the  only  two  of 
the  mutineers  remaining.  .  .  .  After  a  voyage  of 
months,  the  captain  of  the  ship  returned  to  England 
and  made  a  strange  report.  He  said  he  found  the  two 
mutineers  had  become  preachers,  and  were  doing  won- 
derfully good  work  among  the  natives.  The  two  old 
men  had  entire  control  of  the  island,  and  controlled  it 
in  the  interest  of  decency  and  civilization ;  having  be- 
come old,  the  last  of  the  mutineers  had  quit  quarrel- 
ing over  women,  and  were  looking  carefully  after  their 
stomachs  and  souls.  The  captain  of  the  ship  concluded 
it  was  best  to  let  the  two  old  men  alone ;  and  the  Eng- 
glish  government  shared  his  opinion.  A  few  years 
later,  the  old  men  died,  greatly  to  the  regret  of  a  large 
number  of  half-breed  relatives.  Captain  Trask,  of 
the  "Sonoma,"  once  called  at  Island  No.  2,  when  in 
command  of  a  sailing-ship,  and  met  both  of  the  old 
mutineers ;  it  was  Captain  Trask  who  told  me  the  story 
I  have  briefly  outlined.  .  .  .  Captain  Bligh  also 
had  trouble  as  governor  of  Australia.  He  quarreled 
with  nearly  everybody,  and  finally  was  deposed  by 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          161 

force.  On  his  promise  to  return  to  England  direct,  he 
went  aboard  a  waiting  vessel ;  but  he  broke  his  word, 
and  sailed  to  Tasmania  instead.  There  he  tried  to 
force  the  people  to  receive  him  back  as  governor,  but 
they  soon  grew  tired  of  him,  and  forced  him  to  leave 
the  island.  The  result  of  it  all  was  that  Captain  Bligh 
was  made  governor  of  Australia  again,  but  for  only 
twenty-four  hours;  the  king  probably  realized  that 
Bligh  was  quarrelsome,  and  no  one  was  punished  much 
for  impudence  to  him.  Finally  Bligh  was  made  an 
admiral,  and  that  probably  satisfied  him.  .  .  .  The 
early  days  of  Australia,  when  Bligh  was  governor,  were 
very  rough.  The  convict  settlers  had  little  fear  and 
no  respect  for  anyone,  and  did  about  as  they  pleased. 
In  those  days,  drunkenness  and  crime  were  rampant, 
and  the  only  way  to  make  money  was  to  sell  whisky, 
pistols  and  bowie-knives. 


FRIDAY,  FEBRUARY  14. — Rain  fell  again  this  morn- 
ing, but  the  sea  is  smoother,  and  we  have  an  excellent 
prospect  of  getting  out  of  the  Bight  without  serious 
trouble.  After  passing  out  of  the  Bight  we  shall  enter 
a  section  of  the  ocean  where  the  air  is  said  to  be  par- 
ticularly pure  and  invigorating;  it  comes  from  the 
pole  without  contamination  with  land,  and  many  old, 
nervous  men  come  to  take  a  whiff  of  it  on  the  advice  of 
physicians.  .  .  .  Every  morning  we  are  offered 
iced  watermelon  for  breakfast.  It  is  said  to  be  an 
American  idea,  but  I  have  never  heard  of  it  before. 
.  .  .  Every  passenger  is  assigned  to  a  place  in  a 


162  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

lifeboat,  in  case  of  emergency.  I  think  this  is  a  new 
idea  since  the  sinking  of  the  "Titanic."  I  found  this 
notice  hi  my  room:  "IMPORTANT. — Your  boat  is  No. 
8  port.  At  your  earliest  convenience  please  make  your- 
self acquainted  with  the  position  of  your  boat  station. 
The  boat  station  numbers  are  marked  on  the  prom- 
enade deck  rail,  immediately  below  each  boat,  and  your 
boat  station  is  there.  If  the  emergency  arises,  go  to 
your  boat  station,  and  submit  yourself  to  the  orders 
of  the  man  in  charge."  .  .  .  Adelaide  has  been  as- 
signed to  boat  No.  2  port,  so  that  in  case  of  emergency 
we  shall  be  separated;  she  might  land  on  one  island, 
and  I  on  another.  I  find  that  the  gentleman  and  wife 
who  have  five  children  and  two  nurses,  are  also  as- 
signed to  my  lifeboat,  No.  8.  But  I  shall  not  think  of 
the  necessity  of  spending  days  or  weeks  hi  an  open 
boat  with  a  family  of  five  children ;  it  would  be  worse 
than  my  experience  on  the  "Maunganui."  .  .  . 
There  is  an  Eurasian  on  board.  He  is  supposed  to  be 
as  good  as  anybody,  but  there  seems  to  be  a  prejudice 
against  him.  An  Eurasian  is  the  son  or  daughter  of  an 
European  and  Asiatic;  the  term  particularly  applies 
to  the  offspring  of  natives  and  whites  in  India.  Some 
of  the  Eurasian  women  are  very  handsome,  but  their 
social  position  is  so  bad  that  many  of  the  more  sensitive 
ones  commit  suicide.  .  .  .  The  "Anchises"  is  not 
fast;  its  run  from  noon  on  Thursday  to  noon  today 
was  only  326  miles.  The  ship  has  one  custom  which 
is  entirely  new  to  me :  the  tune  is  changed  every  time 
a  watch  goes  off  duty.  At  sea,  the  watch  consists  of 
the  officer  and  men  in  charge  at  any  particular  time. 
As  a  result,  the  tune  changes  three  or  four  tunes  a  day. 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          163 

On  most  ships  the  clock  in  the  companion  way  is  set  back 
or  forward  at  midnight,  and  there  is  not  another  change 
for  twenty-four  hours. 


SATURDAY,  FEBRUARY  15. — People  living  in  a  dry 
country  a  long  way  from  the  sea  do  not  realize  that 
it  covers  three-quarters  of  the  surface  of  the  earth. 
Ninety-six  per  cent  of  the  water  in  the  ocean  is  pure 
fresh  water,  yet  so  great  is  the  bulk  of  sea-water  that 
the  total  amount  of  salt  dissolved  in  it,  if  deposited  in 
a  layer  over  the  surface  of  the  land,  would  make  a  bed 
over  four  hundred  feet  thick.  .  .  .  No  one  is  able 
to  say  what  is  the  source  of  the  salt  in  the  ocean. 
Probably  the  sea  has  always  been  salt,  having  become 
so  when  first  the  waters  gathered  on  the  surface  of  the 
globe ;  but  all  rivers  that  flow  over  the  land  carry  salt, 
which  they  have  obtained  from  the  rocks  and  soil,  so 
the  sea  is  probably  becoming  saltier  all  the  time,  just 
as  some  lakes  without  outlet  are  being  transformed  to 
salt  seas.  .  .  .  Off  the  coast  of  Australia  for  fifty 
or  a  hundred  miles,  the  sea  is  two  hundred  to  four  hun- 
dred feet  deep,  but  the  depth  grows  greater  as  you  leave 
the  land,  and  between  Australia  and  Africa,  in  places, 
the  depth  is  more  than  five  and  a  half  miles,  being 
greater  than  the  elevation  of  the  highest  land  above  the 
sea-level.  It  has  been  calculated  that  the  average 
depth  of  the  ocean  is  more  than  12,000  feet.  The 
plains  of  the  ocean  bottom  are  the  most  extensive  in 
the  world.  Here  and  there  these  plains  are  relieved 
by  single  peaks,  like  Bermuda,  or  groups  of  peaks,  like 


164  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

the  Hawaiian  Islands.  .  .  .  On  the  bottom  of  the 
ocean  there  is  a  constant  rain  of  sediment,  formed  by 
the  death  of  animals  which  have  taken  carbonate  of 
lime  from  the  waters,  and  built  it  into  shells  and  skele- 
tons, which,  when  they  die,  falls  to  the  sea  bottom. 
The  sea-bed  is  made  of  an  ooze  chiefly  composed  of 
remnants  of  these  shells.  .  .  .  The  cause  of  waves 
is  friction  of  the  wind.  Waves  rarely  rise  more  than 
twenty  or  thirty  feet ;  waves  sixty  feet  high  have  been 
noted,  counting  from  the  lowest  point  of  the  trough  to 
the  highest  point  of  the  crest,  but  this  is  very  unusual. 
A  wave  of  large  dimensions  affects  the  sea  to  a  depth  of 
two  or  three  hundred  feet,  and  may  last  for  a  long  time 
after  its  cause  has  disappeared ;  travelers  in  ships  often 
run  into  a  rough  sea  when  the  sun  is  shining  brightly, 
and  there  is  no  wind.  These  big  waves  also  cause  de- 
struction on  the  beaches,  and  the  shore  line  is  always 
being  worn  away.  ...  In  most  parts  of  the  earth, 
the  tide  rises  twice  each  day ;  every  twelve  hours  and 
twenty-five  minutes  there  is  a  high  tide,  with  a  low  tide 
between.  At  Key  West  the  tide  rises  only  two  or  three 
feet ;  in  some  other  places  the  tide  rises  sixty  feet,  and 
comes  in  as  fast  as  a  man  can  run.  It  is  believed  that 
in  some  way  the  tide  is  caused  by  the  moon.  .  .  . 
The  sea  is  more  interesting  than  the  surface  of  the  earth, 
but  its  story  is  scarcely  intelligible  to  those  who  have 
not  been  trained  in  the  alphabet  of  zoological  technical- 
ities. I  read  a  book  today  about  the  sea,  and  have  a 
headache  from  trying  to  understand  it.  All  our  rain 
comes  from  the  ocean ;  it  is  said  that  the  evaporation 
of  the  Red  Sea  amounts  to  eight  feet  per  year,  owing 
to  the  great  heat  of  the  countries  surrounding  it.  One 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          165 

of  the  most  important  facts  that  has  been  established 
by  modern  investigation  of  the  sea  is,  that  there  is  no 
region  in  its  vast  extent  that  is  devoid  of  life.  Strange 
animals  are  found  at  the  greatest  depth  the  trawls  of 
man  have  penetrated,  and  very  wonderful  are  some  of 
the  forms  of  life  found.  The  three  great  laws  of  nature 
are  self-protection,  food,  and  reproduction,  and  here 
the  sea  has  wonderful  tales  to  tell.  Some  sea  animals 
reproduce  by  simply  dropping  a  piece  of  their  body,  and 
other  forms  of  marine  life  are  so  low  that  we  can  barely 
understand  that  it  is  life.  There  is  a  fish  which  hides 
from  enemies  by  shaking  its  fins  in  such  a  manner  as  to 
scatter  a  considerable  quantity  of  sand  over  its  body. 
Another  fish  poisons  its  enemies ;  another  gives  a  strong 
electric  shock.  Many  fish  are  colored  like  the  bottom  of 
the  sea,  to  escape  their  enemies ;  others  resemble  sea- 
weeds. And  the  sea  is  a  vast  slaughter-house;  fish 
feed  upon  one  another,  and  constant  warfare  is  going 
on.  The  whelk  attacks  and  devours  animals  as  large 
as  itself ;  hidden  in  the  recesses  of  the  whelk's  mouth 
there  is  a  ribbon  beset  with  numerous  sharp  little  teeth, 
which,  by  a  complicated  mechanism,  can  be  worked 
backwards  and  forwards  in  such  a  manner  that  it  can 
bore  a  hole  through  very  thick  and  dense  shells ;  and, 
the  soft  parts  being  reached,  a  tube  is  protruded  which 
dissolves  and  sucks  them  up  into  the  animal's  stomach. 
Certain  of  the  cuttle-fishes,  as  they  pass  slowly  through 
the  water  from  one  point  to  another,  are  able  to  change 
the  color  of  the  skin  so  as  to  resemble  the  color  of  the 
rocks  or  weeds  which  are  below  them.  Another  very 
interesting  feature  presented  by  these  animals  is  their 
ability  to  discharge  suddenly  a  cloud  of  inky  substance 


166  TRAVEL  LETTERS  PROM 

into  the  water,  and  are  thus  able  to  escape  pursuit. 
.  .  .  The  corals  are  so  numerous  that  they  build 
great  islands,  very  much  as  bees  construct  honeycomb. 
Some  of  these  coral  reefs  are  highly  colored ;  when  seen 
from  a  boat  through  two  or  three  feet  of  water,  they 
look  more  like  a  flower-bed  than  a  mass  of  animals. 
The  corals  are  so  abundant  that  rocky  islands  hun- 
dreds of  miles  in  extent  are  composed  of  their  shells 
and  skeletons.  .  .  .  You  have  heard  of  the  phos- 
phorescent light  often  seen  on  the  surface  of  the  sea. 
This  light  is  caused  by  millions  of  little  animals  which 
emit  a  light,  and  they  are  so  numerous  that  it  is  fre- 
quently possible  to  read  at  midnight  on  the  deck  of  a 
ship.  The  same  little  animals  may  be  seen  in  the  water 
of  your  bath,  if  taken  on  shipboard  at  night.  .  .  .  On 
certain  parts  of  the  coast  of  the  Samoan  Islands,  where 
we  were  a  few  weeks  ago,  the  Palolo  worm  appears  in 
great  abundance  in  the  early  morning  hours  of  one  or 
two  days  at  the  beginning  of  the  third  quarter  of  the 
moon,  in  the  months  of  October  and  November.  As 
the  worm  is  regarded  as  a  very  great  delicacy  by  the 
natives,  the  days  of  its  appearance  are  looked  upon  as 
the  red-letter  days  of  the  year.  It  appears  just  at  the 
beginning  of  dawn,  in  countless  millions,  on  a  date 
which  may  be  accurately  foretold  by  those  familiar 
with  the  moon's  phases.  As  soon  as  the  sun  appears, 
the  millions  of  worms  disappear,  and  are  not  heard  of 
again  until  another  year.  .  .  .  There  are  fish  that 
fly,  as  every  traveler  by  sea  can  attest,  and  it  is  to 
avoid  the  bonito  that  the  flying-fish  leave  the  water. 
The  bonito  is  able  to  leap  fifteen  feet  into  the  air,  which 
ability  it  acquired  in  pursuing  its  favorite  food.  .  .  . 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          167 

The  largest  existing  animal,  the  blue  whale,  is  found  in 
the  sea,  and  it  attains  the  enormous  length  of  eighty- 
six  feet.  Although  living  in  the  sea,  the  blue  whales 
are  air-breathers.  They  are  able,  however,  to  hold 
their  breath  for  a  considerable  tune  under  water.  When 
they  come  to  the  surface  to  renew  the  air  supply  in 
their  lungs,  they  first  make  a  violent  expiratory  effort 
from  the  nostril,  and  drive  a  column  of  spray  many  feet 
into  the  air  above  them.  This  phenomenon  is  called 
"spouting,"  and  whalers  are  thus  able  to  locate  the 
animals.  The  skin  of  whales  is  often  beset  with  barna- 
cles, some  species  of  which  are  found  nowhere  else  but 
on  these  mammals.  Parasitism  is  very  common  in  the 
sea,  and  sometimes  as  many  as  four  animals  are  found 
dependent  on  each  other.  .  .  .  Some  sea-water 
animals  can  only  be  induced  to  live  in  the  aquarium 
when  the  water  is  kept  as  pure  as  it  is  in  the  open  sea ; 
on  the  other  hand,  several  of  the  Crustacea,  seem  to 
flourish  best  in  stinking  and  putrescent  pools.  .  .  . 
It  is  a  fact  generally  accepted  by  learned  men,  that  all 
animals  are  originally  derived  from  ancestors  that  lived 
in  the  sea.  In  the  birds  and  reptiles,  as  well  as  in  the 
mammals,  many  things  clearly  indicate  that  their  an- 
cestors in  remote  periods,  lived  in  water,  and  not  on 
dry  land.  And  when  we  consult  the  botanists,  and  find 
that  they  agree  that  all  plants  must  have  had  a  marine 
origin  also,  the  case  for  the  sea  being  the  original 
home  of  all  living  organisms  may  be  said  to  be  com- 
plete. .  .  .  We  cannot  tell  in  what  form  life  first 
appeared  upon  the  earth.  Whether  the  unstable  living 
substance  called  protoplasm  was  in  the  earliest  con- 
ditions of  the  earth  formed  spontaneously  by  the  chance 


168  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

combination  of  its  elements,  or  whether  some  germ  or 
other  made  a  hazardous  journey  through  space  from 
another  planet  enwrapped  in  the  casing  of  a  meteorite, 
are  questions  upon  which  no  light  has  yet  been  thrown 
by  scientific  observation  or  speculation.  The  majority 
of  scholars  believe  that  life  originated  at  the  bottom  of 
shallow  waters,  or  on  the  surface  of  the  seas.  Several 
naturalists  believe  that  some  free-swimming  form  of 
jelly-fish  was  the  ancestor,  and  that  from  this  simple 
start  came,  by  millions  of  years  of  evolution,  every  liv- 
ing thing. 


SUNDAY,  FEBRUARY  16. — The  tallest  man  I  have  ever 
seen  in  private  life  turns  out  to  be  a  clergyman  of  the 
Church  of  England,  and  early  this  morning  he  con- 
ducted holy  communion  in  the  music-room,  which  was 
attended  by  about  a  dozen  women.  At  11  A.  M.  he 
held  another  service,  which  attracted  twenty-five  or 
thirty.  Both  services  were  announced  by  tolling  the 
dinner-gong  like  a  church-bell.  We  call  the  tall  man 
our  pastor,  and  he  will  seem  quite  like  it  after  we  have 
been  associated  with  him  all  the  way  to  Durban.  I 
have  spent  Sunday  on  three  other  ships,  but  no  re- 
ligious services  were  held.  .  .  .  Every  English- 
man, before  he  has  known  an  American  long,  refers 
to  the  amusing  manner  in  which  Americans  eat  green 
corn  off  the  cob.  I  suppose  that  seeing  a  room  full  of 
Americans  eating  corn  off  the  cob  is  a  funny  sight  that 
only  foreigners  can  appreciate.  An  Englishman  who 
sits  at  our  table,  and  who  lives  at  Johannesburg,  says 
roasting-ears  are  widely  grown  in  South  Africa,  and  that 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          169 

Englishmen  there  eat  them  in  American  fashion.  In 
Australia,  I  noted  that  green  corn  is  sold  in  fruit  stores, 
as  a  rarity ;  I  never  saw  it  at  the  vegetable  markets,  or 
in  the  grocery  stores.  Australian  and  New  Zealand 
gardeners  do  not  raise  the  variety  of  vegetables  we 
have  in  the  United  States.  .  .  .  There  are  fifteen 
children  and  a  phonograph  on  board,  so  we  do  not  lack 
for  noise.  The  children  are  better  behaved  than  Amer- 
ican children,  and  under  more  control ;  the  phonograph 
is  of  American  make,  a  Victor,  with  wooden  horn. 
There  are  five  nurses  with  the  children ;  one  of  them 
is  employed  by  the  tall  clergyman.  American  clergy- 
men are  not  so  prosperous,  as  a  rule,  that  they  travel 
with  nurses.  .  .  .  It  is  so  dull  on  board  that  last 
evening  the  passengers  went  down  to  dinner  at  seven 
o'clock,  and  remained  at  the  tables  until  8 :  10.  The 
"Anchises"  is  introducing  an  innovation  which  pleases 
me :  it  gives  the  passengers  better  rooms,  and  less  to 
eat.  We  have  plenty,  but  on  some  ships  there  is  so 
much  to  eat  that  the  passengers  are  tempted  beyond 
resistance,  and  eat  too  much.  .  .  .  We  have  been 
passing  the  western  point  of  Australia  today,  and  the 
sea  has  been  rough.  But  the  "Anchises"  has  such  a 
gentlemanly  roll  that  we  do  not  mind  it.  The  ship  has 
ten  thousand  tons  of  cargo  in  its  hold,  and  cannot  skip 
about  as  do  ships  lightly  loaded.  From  Adelaide  to 
Albany,  the  western  point  of  Australia,  there  is  no 
railroad.  The  distance  is  twelve  or  fourteen  hundred 
miles.  Had  the  government  kept  out  of  the  railroad 
business,  private  capital  would  have  built  that  gap 
long  ago,  and  passengers  from  Australia  to  South 
Africa  might  avoid  four  days  of  sea-travel.  We  fol- 


170  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

lowed  the  ship  by  rail  from  Sydney,  and  would  have  fol- 
lowed it  to  Albany,  had  there  been  a  railroad  to  that 
place  from  Adelaide.  .  .  .  The  weather  has  been 
chilly,  but  the  latter  part  of  this  week  we  will  run  into 
warm  weather,  which  will  continue  until  we  reach 
home.  As  a  result  of  the  raw,  chilly  weather,  and  no 
heat  anywhere  on  the  ship,  I  had  a  siege  with  neuralgia, 
an  entirely  new  experience  for  me.  The  only  thing  to 
do  was  to  go  to  bed  and  cover  up  well,  with  a  hot-water 
bag  to  my  jaw.  Fortunately  I  have  the  best  steward 
I  have  ever  drawn  on  a  ship,  and  he  paid  me  a  good 
deal  of  attention.  ...  A  young  Englishman  who 
sits  at  our  table  tells  a  terrible  story  of  Business.  He 
says  that  in  Johannesburg,  South  Africa,  where  he  lives, 
he  is  often  compelled  to  take  thirty  drinks  a  day,  or 
lose  trade.  I  would  like  to  tell  him  what  I  think  of 
the  statement,  but  do  not  care  to  start  a  row  on  board. 
Any  man  who  says  he  is  forced  to  drink  intoxicants  or 
lose  trade,  tells  a  silly  falsehood.  A  drinking  man 
usually  admires  a  man  who  doesn't  drink.  The  men 
who  have  been  most  successful  in  business  have  not 
been  noted  as  boozers.  But  while  I  didn't  tell  the 
young  man  what  I  thought  of  his  statement,  an  elderly 
Englishman  did.  "The  Americans,"  the  elderly  Eng- 
lishman said,  "are  the  smartest  business  men  in  the 
world,  and  they  do  not  drink  as  much  as  we  do.  And 
the  drinking  habit  in  America  is  becoming  more  un- 
popular every  day,  and  will  finally  become  disrepu- 
table." I  have  noticed  that  while  most  Englishmen 
"pick"  at  Americans,  they  really  have  a  high  opinion 
of  them.  ...  I  have  spent  part  of  the  day  read- 
ing a  book  entitled,  "Around  Cape  Horn."  It  is  a  com- 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          171 

mon  sailor's  experience  in  sailing  from  San  Francisco 
to  Liverpool.  For  weeks  the  ship  had  terrible  weather ; 
it  seemed  that  wreck  was  inevitable  almost  every  hour 
of  the  voyage.  I  am  of  the  opinion  that  the  writer 
made  the  voyage  much  worse  than  it  really  was,  in 
order  that  he  might  have  a  tale  that  would  appeal  to 
publishers.  I  have  spent  many  weeks  at  sea,  on  many 
ships,  but  have  never  experienced  any  of  the  rough 
weather  this  writer  tells  about.  I  have  experienced 
much  disagreeable  weather  at  sea,  but  I  have  never 
seen  a  ship  in  any  danger  of  swamping.  The  stories  of 
storms  at  sea  remind  me  of  stories  of  battles.  There 
will  be  a  perfect  ram  of  shot  and  shell ;  pandemonium 
will  reign,  and,  from  the  book  account,  it  would  seem 
that  not  a  single  man  could  live  to  tell  the  tale.  But 
when  the  casualties  are  listed,  it  is  found  that  only  two 
men  were  slightly  wounded.  What  a  terrific  affair 
the  Battle  of  Manila  Bay  was!  Yet  not  a  single  man 
in  Admiral  Dewey's  fleet  was  struck  by  shot  or  shell, 
although  the  engagement  lasted  for  hours.  .  .  . 
The  man  who  has  a  wife  and  five  children,  and  two 
nurses,  on  board,  was  talking  to  me  today. 

"I  suppose  you  have  heard,"  he  said,  "that  a  young 
man  may  marry,  and  his  expenses  will  be  less  than  be- 
fore ;  in  short,  that  two  may  live  on  less  than  one?  " 

I  replied  that  I  had  heard  the  story. 

"Well,"  he  said,  "there  is  nothing  in  it." 

From  noon  yesterday  until  noon  today,  the  ship's 
run  was  only  312  miles.  There  was  once  a  famous 
American  sailing-ship,  the  "Red  Jacket,"  which  did 
a  better  average  than  that  for  ten  consecutive  days. 
But  it  must  have  had  a  great  run  of  luck.  Sailing- 


172  TRAVEL  LETTERS  PROM 

ships  often  make  less  than  a  hundred  miles  a  day,  and, 
when  the  wind  is  very  unfavorable,  lose  in  twenty-four 
hours  all  they  have  made  hi  three  or  four  days.  .  .  . 
We  are  followed  every  day  by  the  albatross :  great 
birds  which  sail  for  hours  against  the  wind  without 
moving  a  wing.  The  sailors  say  that  the  young,  after 
reaching  a  certain  age,  and  being  made  very  fat,  are 
deserted  by  their  parents,  and  have  nothing  to  eat  for 
six  months.  At  the  end  of  that  time  they  are  able  to 
fly,  and  seek  food  for  themselves.  ...  In  the 
smoking-room  today  I  heard  a  man  say  that  every 
vicious  person  may  be  detected  by  looking  at  his  ears. 
If  the  tops  of  his  ears  are  as  low  as  his  eyes,  look  out 
for  him ;  he  is  dangerous. 


MONDAY,  FEBRUARY  17. — The  manner  in  which  the 
male  passengers  on  ships  drink  coffee  in  the  smoking- 
room,  after  dinner,  has  been  getting  on  my  nerves; 
but  just  as  I  was  working  up  a  fine  case  of  indignation, 
I  found  the  custom  did  not  prevail  on  the  "Anchises." 
On  this  ship  those  men  who  wish  coffee  after  dinner, 
drink  it  in  the  dining-room,  and  none  is  served  in  the 
smoking-room.  You  cannot  realize  how  unusual  this 
new  rule  is  unless  you  have  seen  the  smoking-rooms  of 
many  ships  filled  with  men  drinking  coffee  after  dinner. 
I  wonder  the  captain  of  the  "Anchises"  dared  order  the 
change,  but  I  have  not  heard  any  complaints.  .  .  . 
Among  our  acquaintances  are  a  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Steele, 
of  Sydney.  Mr.  Steele  has  been  married  twice,  and 
talks  a  good  deal  about  his  daughter  in  London,  and 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          173 

his  son  in  Philadelphia.  Some  widowers  who  have 
married  again,  speak  of  "our"  children,  while  others 
say  "my"  children;  just  as  some  men  who  have  been 
married  twice  are  always  talking  about  it,  while  others 
keep  quiet,  and  let  you  find  out  about  their  second 
marriage  if  you  can.  I  don't  think  Mrs.  Steele  likes 
the  manner  in  which  he  talks  about  his  son  in  Phila- 
delphia, and  his  daughter  in  London,  preferring  that 
he  say  "our"  son  in  Philadelphia  and  "our"  daughter 
in  London.  Stepchildren  also  amuse  me ;  they  try  so 
hard  to  show  respect  for  pa's  new  wife,  or  ma's  new  hus- 
band, and  fail  so  lamentably.  There  is  always  some- 
thing unusual  in  a  second  marriage.  .  .  .  This  is 
our  sixth  full  day  on  the  "  Anchises."  Had  we  been  on  a 
fast  boat  on  the  Atlantic,  we  should  be  landing  to- 
morrow. But  this  is  a  long  trip,  and  we  are  only  fairly 
getting  started :  we  shall  not  land  at  Durban  until  a 
week  from  next  Monday.  Those  who  came  on  at  Syd- 
ney have  already  been  on  board  fifteen  days,  and,  if 
they  are  going  to  Liverpool,  they  still  have  thirty-two 
days  of  it.  A  gentleman  and  his  wife  who  are  at  our 
table  came  on  board  at  Melbourne,  and  they  will  be  on 
board  forty-seven  days.  .  .  .  Every  woman  in 
Australia  and  New  Zealand  wears  a  bracelet  watch ; 
the  custom  seems  to  be  universal.  In  the  United 
States  women  wear  watches  attached  to  chains  of  one 
shape  or  another,  but  here  it  is  a  universal  custom  for 
women  to  wear  watches  set  in  a  bracelet  on  the  left 
wrist.  ...  I  believe  this  is  the  dullest  trip  I  have 
ever  undertaken,  and  almost  scream  with  horror  when 
I  realize  that  I  shall  not  see  land  for  another  thirteen 
days.  Fortunately  we  have  not  been  seasick;  the 


174  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

"Anchises"  is  a  wonderfully  steady  boat.  But  it  is 
as  dull  on  board  as  on  a  back  street  in  a  country  town. 
Part  of  the  passengers  sit  on  one  side  of  the  main  deck 
and  part  on  the  other,  while  some  of  them  sit  on  the 
upper  or  boat  deck.  All  of  us  walk  about  a  good  deal 
for  exercise,  and  I  think  we  tire  of  seeing  each  other  go 
'round  and  'round.  One  restless  woman  is  going  most 
of  the  tune,  and  I  often  hear  the  others  growl:  "If 
that  woman  would  only  sit  down! "  I  fear  we  shall  en- 
gage hi  fist  fights  before  we  reach  Durban.  .  .  . 
Two  highly  respectable  spinsters  from  Australia  have 
attracted  my  attention.  On  deck  and  in  the  dining- 
room  they  are  so  well  behaved  that  I  marvel  at  them ; 
but  this  afternoon  they  became  desperate,  and  left  their 
side  of  the  deck  and  came  over  to  our  side.  And  at  din- 
ner tonight  I  saw  the  bolder  one  looking  about  the  din- 
ing-room, hoping  to  see  something  to  talk  about.  If 
these  highly  respectable  women  are  becoming  reckless 
at  the  end  of  six  days,  what  will  they  be  doing  hi  thirteen 
days  more?  .  .  A  Sports  Committee  was  or- 
ganized today,  to  Keep  Something  Going  On.  But 
ship  games  are  about  as  uninteresting  as  a  Salvation 
Army  street  service.  A  subscription  was  taken  up, 
to  raise  money  with  which  to  buy  prizes  for  the  winners 
of  the  games,  and  I  heard  it  hinted  that  the  promoters 
expect  others  to  do  the  giving.  There  was  no  great  de- 
mand for  Sports,  except  in  the  minds  of  three  or  four 
men.  It's  a  good  deal  that  way  on  land  when  a  cele- 
bration is  held,  or  a  new  church  built,  or  money  raised 
for  a  Y.  M.  C.  A.  building.  I  predict  that  the  Sports 
Committee  will  not  greatly  relieve  the  dullness.  One 
of  the  games  is  a  special  form  of  cricket  arranged  for 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          175 

the  sea.  A  regular  game  of  cricket  is  so  dull  that  some 
of  our  most  noted  humorists  have  laughed  at  it,  but 
sea  cricket  is  much  worse.  ...  I  was  talking  to- 
day with  an  Englishman  who  has  lived  in  Australia  a 
long  time,  and  who  married  an  Australian  woman. 
He  says  it  pleases  Australians  to  be  told  they  are  like 
Americans,  and  it  makes  them  very  angry  to  be  told 
that  they  are  like  the  English.  He  confirms  what  I 
have  noticed  everywhere ;  that  Australians  and  New- 
Zealanders  "pick"  at  the  English  constantly.  .  .  . 
I  am  beginning  to  believe  I  can  see  a  difference  between 
the  colonists  and  the  English,  although  I  couldn't  at 
first.  A  woman  today  told  me  of  her  troubles  with  ser- 
vants in  Australia,  and  her  troubles  are  exactly  like 
those  I  hear  women  complain  of  at  home.  There  are 
English  nurse  girls  and  Australian  nurse  girls  on  board, 
but  they  do  not  mix.  The  English  girls  wear  nurses' 
costumes,  but  the  Australian  girls  say  that  is  beneath 
their  dignity.  One  of  these  Australian  nurse  girls  is  not 
more  than  twenty  years  old,  and  has  a  full  set  of  false 
teeth.  There  are  many  "American  dentists"  hi  Aus- 
tralia (one  was  shot  by  his  office  girl  in  Melbourne  while 
I  was  there),  and  I  judge  they  have  a  great  deal  to  do. 


TUESDAY,  FEBRUARY  18. — I  read  a  good  deal,  as  the 
ship  has  an  excellent  library;  frequently  I  take  out 
two  books  a  day.  One  I  read  this  morning  is  entitled, 
"The  Cruise  of  the  'Falcon.'  "  In  1880,  an  English- 
man named  E.  F.  Knight  conceived  the  notion  of  tak- 
ing a  long  voyage  in  a  small  yacht  called  the  "Falcon." 


176  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

The  vessel  was  only  forty-two  feet  long  and  thirteen 
feet  wide,  yet  he  cruised  in  it  for  twenty  months,  going 
from  England  to  South  America,  and  thence  to  the 
West  Indies,  where  he  sold  his  boat,  and  took  a  steamer 
home.  The  crew  consisted  of  Knight  and  three  friends, 
and  a  boy.  One  of  these  friends,  Jerdein,  had  been  an 
officer  on  a  P.  &  O.  liner,  and  was  a  skilled  navigator 
and  seaman,  while  Knight  was  an  amateur  yachtsman 
of  considerable  experience;  but  the  other  two,  An- 
drews and  Arnand,  were  landlubbers.  The  boy  was 
fifteen  years  old,  and  had  been  to  sea  several  times. 
On  the  way  to  South  America  they  stopped  at  several 
islands,  and  had  a  prosperous  and  agreeable  voyage. 
Their  undertaking  was  thought  to  be  a  foolhardy  one, 
and  the  newspapers  at  the  time  devoted  much  space 
to  the  voyage,  but  the  little  "Falcon"  turned  out  to 
be  quite  fast,  and  rode  the  seas  well;  two  thousand 
miles  were  made  in  ten  consecutive  days  off  the  coast 
of  South  America.  Five  months  were  devoted  to  a 
trip  up  the  Parana  and  Paraguay  rivers.  At  Buenos 
Aires,  Jerdein,  Andrews  and  Arnand  concluded  that 
they  had  had  enough  of  it,  and  quit  the  little  boat. 
Knight  was  not  discouraged,  and  hired  three  Italian 
sailors,  in  addition  to  the  boy.  With  these  he  put  to 
sea,  and  had  a  very  rough  voyage.  .  .  .  There  are 
two  islands  called  Trinidad ;  one  of  them  in  the  West 
Indies,  and  the  other  off  the  coast  of  lower  South  Amer- 
ica. Knight  determined  to  visit  the  latter  island,  and 
had  a  very  remarkable  experience.  The  landing  was 
bad,  and  he  found  the  island  an  unwholesome  and  in- 
hospitable place.  At  one  spot  on  the  island  he  found 
a  great  lot  of  wreckage;  it  looked  as  though  many 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          177 

foundered  ships  had  drifted  in  there  and  gone  to  pieces. 
He  believed  treasure  might  be  found  in  the  wreckage, 
but  the  weather  was  stormy,  and  he  did  not  know  what 
moment  the  "Falcon"  might  be  compelled  to  sail  away 
for  safety,  so  he  gave  up  the  treasure,  and  left  the  island, 
where  he  spent  three  or  four  very  uncomfortable  days. 
From  Trinidad  he  went  to  Bahia,  and  to  the  Amazon, 
meeting  with  all  sorts  of  adventures,  finally  landing 
at  Barbadoes,  where  he  sold  the  "Falcon,"  and  sailed 
for  home  on  a  steamship.  ...  I  suppose  Knight 
elaborated  his  dangers  and  adventures ;  talkers  do  this, 
and  I  see  no  reason  why  writers  should  not.  Many  of 
his  most  remarkable  stories  he  had  second-hand ;  the 
wonderful  incidents  recorded  happened  a  day,  or  a 
week,  or  a  month,  after  he  arrived  at  certain  places. 
This  is  true  of  most  very  remarkable  circumstances; 
the  narrators  do  not  say  they  witnessed  them,  but  gen- 
tlemen they  had  every  reason  to  believe  truthful  told 
them  the  stories,  etc.  Dozens  of  men  have  told  me  of 
the  famous  pilot-fish  of  New  Zealand,  which  pilots  all 
ships  through  a  certain  channel.  None  of  these  gentle- 
men have  actually  seen  the  pilot-fish  at  work,  but  they 
met  a  gentleman  only  last  week,  or  the  week  before, 
who  had  seen  it.  By-the-way,  a  recent  Sydney  paper 
says  the  famous  pilot-fish  has  not  been  seen  in  six 
months;  it  is  feared  that  he  has  been  killed  by  the 
crew  of  some  whaling-ship.  .  .  .  Another  favor- 
ite story  is  of  the  fogs  in  London,  yet  I  have  never  seen 
anyone  who  has  witnessed  one  of  these  fogs.  And  the 
Scientific  American  stated  not  long  ago  that  the  old- 
fashioned  London  fog  has  disappeared;  that  one  has 
not  been  seen  in  a  good  many  years.  .  .  .  Speak- 


178  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

ing  of  whalers,  it  is  generally  agreed  that  in  the  old 
days  when  that  industry  was  flourishing  and  profitable, 
the  Yankees  were  the  smartest  men  at  the  business. 
Indeed,  when  an  English  firm  built  and  equipped  a 
whaling-ship,  Yankees  were  employed  to  teach  the 
English  crew  the  business.  I  have  been  grumbling 
a  little  because  of  this  voyage  of  nineteen  days.  The 
old  whalers  used  to  be  gone  three  years  on  their  voy- 
ages ;  sometimes  they  did  not  see  land  for  ten  months 
at  a  time.  Capturing  a  whale  was  as  dangerous  as  a 
naval  battle.  The  sailors  went  after  it  in  small  boats, 
and  a  whale  was  rarely  captured  under  six  or  seven 
hours.  .  .  .  The  sea  is  supposed  to  be  very  dan- 
gerous. As  a  matter  of  fact,  a  sea  voyage  is  not  as 
dangerous  as  a  railroad  journey.  Take  a  hundred 
thousand  people  who  travel  a  given  number  of  hours 
by  rail,  and  compare  them  with  a  hundred  thousand 
who  travel  a  like  number  of  hours  by  sea,  and  those 
traveling  by  sea  will  have  very  much  the  best  of  it,  so 
far  as  safety  is  concerned.  Indeed,  going  to  sea  is 
safer  than  staying  at  home.  Ever  remark  the  great 
number  of  people  who  are  killed  around  home?  The 
newspapers  are  full  of  dreadful  accidents  occurring  in 
quiet,  rural  communities  where  life  is  supposed  to  be 
particularly  safe.  Every  time  a  farmer  hitches  up 
a  team,  he  runs  a  risk.  A  buggy-ride  is  dangerous; 
the  hold-back  straps  are  liable  to  break,  in  going  down 
hill;  and  a  buggy  running  onto  the  heels  of  a  horse 
is  almost  sure  to  cause  an  accident.  And  public  streets 
and  roads  are  more  dangerous  than  ever  since  auto- 
mobiles became  so  numerous.  ...  In  seacoast 
towns  everywhere  may  be  seen  thousands  of  old  men 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          179 

who  have  spent  their  lives  at  sea  almost  without  acci- 
dent. An  insurance  company  regards  a  seaman  as  a 
safe  risk ;  as  safe  as  a  farmer.  It  isn't  the  danger  that 
should  keep  you  off  the  sea ;  it  is  seasickness,  and  four 
in  a  room  9x10  feet.  Nor  is  it  the  expense  that  should 
keep  you  off  the  sea.  For  this  voyage  of  practically 
twenty  days  I  pay  $150;  or  $7.50  a  day.  It  would 
cost  that  at  a  New  York  hotel  for  room  and  board. 
And  there  are  sea  voyages  much  cheaper  than  this  one : 
there  is  a  White  Star  boat  running  between  Sydney  and 
London,  by  way  of  South  Africa,  which  charges  about 
$5  a  day  for  the  journey.  It  combines  first,  second 
and  third  class  into  one  class,  but  is  said  to  be  very 
fair. 


WEDNESDAY,  FEBRUARY  19. — We  are  the  only  Amer- 
icans on  board  the  "Anchises,"  although  a  passenger 
from  London  once  met  an  American  who  lived  in 
Connecticut.  The  Londoner  asked  me  today  if  I  knew 
his  Connecticut  friend.  I  was  compelled  to  confess 
I  did  not  know  him,  although  the  London  man  said  his 
friend  was  one  of  the  prominent  men  of  that  part  of  the 
world.  ...  It  seems  we  are  not  a  musical  crowd  ; 
although  a  concert  has  been  announced  for  the  night 
before  we  reach  Durban,  there  is  no  one  to  play  the 
piano.  I  suggested  to  a  member  of  the  Sports  Commit- 
tee that  some  of  us  might  learn,  as  we  would  have  ample 
time,  but  he  did  not  believe  my  scheme  practical.  A 
man  on  board  has  a  graphophone,  with  sixty  records, 
and  this  is  going  a  good  deal.  Last  night  he  loaned  the 
machine  to  his  nurse  girl,  and  she  gave  a  concert  on  the 


180  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

lower  deck  for  the  benefit  of  the  crew.  One  of  the  fire- 
men plays  the  violin,  and  the  laundry  girls,  stewardesses 
and  nurse  girls  danced  with  members  of  the  crew.  It 
was  a  bright  moonlight  night,  and  this  social  event  at- 
tracted more  attention  than  anything  else  we  have  had 
on  board.  There  was  a  euchre  tournament  in  the  smok- 
ing-room, but  it  did  not  attract  as  much  attention  as  the 
dance.  Euchre  is  called  a  "nigger's  game"  here;  it 
is  said  to  be  so  simple  that  niggers  can  learn  it.  ... 
Women  are  in  the  smoking-room  of  the  "Anchises" 
constantly,  but  some  captains  do  not  allow  this :  they 
say  the  smoking-room  is  for  men,  and  that  if  women 
are  allowed  in  the  room,  some  of  the  men  will  keep  out. 
.  .  .  The  Eurasian  on  board  speaks  no  English, 
and,  in  addition,  has  had  toothache  for  more  than  a 
week.  Toothache  is  one  of  the  dangers  of  the  sea. 
Captain  Trask  told  me  that  he  once  suffered  seven  weeks 
with  toothache,  when  on  a  sailing-ship,  and  was  not  free 
from  pain  a  moment  during  all  that  time.  On  a  sailing- 
ship  there  is  no  doctor ;  the  captain  doctors  the  sailors 
when  they  become  ill,  and  usually  he  doesn't  know 
much  about  medicine.  .  .  .  We  have  had  an  un- 
usually smooth  sea  today,  but  the  weather  has  been 
cloudy;  we  have  not  had  a  clear  day  since  leaving 
Adelaide,  although  the  sun  occasionally  shows  itself  for 
a  short  time.  .  .  .  The  English  people  are  as  crazy 
about  cricket  as  Americans  are  about  baseball.  A  man 
who  attends  all  cricket  games,  and  knows  all  the  fine 
points,  is  called  a  "barracker."  But  he  does  not  abuse 
the  players,  as  do  our  baseball  fans;  a  "barracker" 
seems  to  be  more  of  a  gentleman  than  a  "fan."  .  .  . 
I  don't  believe  I  look  at  the  sea  more  than  once  a  day ; 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.  181 

usually,  when  I  get  up  in  the  morning,  I  look  out  the 
window,  and  remark  that  the  sea  is  smoother  or  rougher 
than  yesterday,  but  that  is  about  all.  I  have  never 
seen  anything  beautiful  or  unusual  at  sea,  except  one 
evening  when  on  the  "Sonoma."  I  was  leaning  over 
the  rail  forward,  as  the  sun  was  setting.  The  rays  of 
the  setting  sun  were  reflected  in  the  waves  rolled  up 
by  the  prow  of  the  ship ;  I  could  see  all  the  colors  of 
the  rainbow,  and  the  effect  was  very  unusual  and  beau- 
tiful. But  as  a  rule,  the  sea  is  never  majestic,  though 
it  is  frequently  what  the  English  call  "nasty."  .  .  . 
This  is  our  seventh  day  out,  and  we  have  not  seen  a  sail 
or  ship.  One  day  we  saw  a  black  spot  which  might 
have  been  smoke  from  a  steamer,  but  that  is  all.  Even 
the  albatross  have  deserted  us,  and  we  are  as  lonely  as 
lonely  can  be.  The  members  of  the  Sports  Committee 
are  working  hard  to  Keep  Something  Going  On,  but 
they  are  not  meeting  with  any  great  success.  It  is 
amusing  to  see  them  hunt  up  players  for  the  different 
games.  The  head  of  the  Sports  Committee  is  a  fine 
old  gentleman  named  Irons,  a  friend  of  ours,  and  we 
find  a  good  deal  of  amusement  in  watching  him  worry 
around  like  the  man  who  proposed  a  picnic  which  isn't 
going  very  well.  We  try  to  take  the  Sports  Committee 
seriously,  since  the  other  passengers  would  probably 
think  us  "funny"  if  we  did  not  (if  they  do  not  already 
entertain  that  suspicion),  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  the 
Sports  Committee  is  a  joke  to  us.  "Well,"  one  mem- 
ber of  the  committee  said  to  me  this  evening,  "it  has 
been  a  strenuous  day."  I  thought  it  the  dullest  day 
I  ever  experienced  anywhere.  We  hear  this  evening 
that  our  friend  Mr.  Irons,  head  of  the  Sports  Commit- 


182  TRAVEL  LETTERS  PROM 

tee,  is  in  bed  as  a  result  of  the  excitement  of  the  day, 
and  we  are  laughing  at  him,  in  which  his  wife  joins  us. 
.  .  .  It  is  at  least  clean  at  sea ;  no  dust  and  no  dirt. 
If  it  were  not  for  the  idea  of  it,  you  might  wear  a  collar 
a  week  at  sea.  .  .  .  Somewhere  out  in  this  wilder- 
ness there  is  said  to  be  a  large  island  where  the  women 
greatly  outnumber  the  men;  of  six  hundred  adults, 
five  hundred  are  women.  I  have  forgotten  the  name 
of  the  place,  but  I  have  heard  the  men  talk  about  it  a 
good  deal.  On  this  island,  the  men  do  nothing,  and  the 
women  wait  upon  them  with  great  cheerfulness.  A 
man  is  at  liberty  to  have  as  many  wives  as  he  pleases ; 
the  men  tell  very  amusing  stories  about  life  on  the 
island,  and  usually  they  tell  them  in  the  presence  of  the 
women,  to  adorn  a  moral.  This  paradise  for  men  is 
known  in  a  general  way  as  "The  Island,"  and  I  am  of 
the  opinion  that  it  is  an  invention  of  some  man  who  has 
dreamed  of  such  a  place,  after  being  imposed  upon  a 
good  deal  by  women  and  girls. 


THURSDAY,  FEBRUARY  20. — In  Australia,  what  we 
call  a  tramp  is  known  as  a  "Sundowner,"  because  of  his 
habit  of  appearing  at  sundown,  and  asking  for  a  night's 
entertainment.  .  .  .  The  best  thing  we  have  to 
eat  on  the  ship  is  oatmeal,  which  is  served  every  morn- 
ing for  breakfast.  I  have  been  neglecting  this  nutri- 
tious and  palatable  food  for  years,  having  drifted  off  to 
new  breakfast  foods  extensively  advertised,  but  I  shall 
drift  back  to  the  Old  Reliable,  as  I  find  it  surprisingly 
good.  .  .  .  Opposite  me  on  deck  today  sat  a  woman 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          183 

reading  an  English  magazine.  On  the  front  cover  was 
an  advertisement  of  "Black  and  White"  whisky.  The 
magazine  was  about  the  size  of  our  Ladies1  Home  Jour- 
nal; imagine  that  fine  publication  with  a  whisky  ad- 
vertisement occupying  two-thirds  of  the  front  cover 
page.  ...  A  passenger  named  Grice  was  telling 
this  morning  of  an  uncomfortable  experience.  He  was 
riding  after  cattle  on  the  plains  of  Australia,  when  his 
horse  fell  over  an  ant-hill.  The  horse  broke  its  neck, 
and  fell  on  the  man  in  such  a  way  as  to  pin  him  to  the 
ground.  After  six  or  seven  hours,  help  arrived.  There 
was  no  surgeon  in  the  district,  and  the  man  was  carried 
to  Melbourne,  180  miles.  Here  he  was  operated  on 
seven  times,  and  is  just  out  of  the  hospital,  where  he 
spent  eight  months.  He  is  on  his  way  to  Mombasa, 
in  Africa,  to  hunt.  When  surgeons  and  hospitals  are 
mentioned,  I  find  that  the  Mayos,  of  Rochester,  Minne- 
sota, are  known  everywhere.  ...  I  have  heard 
that  some  men,  when  they  return  from  a  long  trip 
abroad,  are  very  conceited  about  it,  and  talk  too  much 
of  their  experiences.  In  case  I  am  so  fortunate  as  to 
return  from  this  trip,  I  shall  be  very  modest,  and  greatly 
admire  those  who  had  sense  enough  to  remain  at  home. 
How  I  admire  Uncle  Bruce,  of  Potato  Hill  farm,  who 
has  nothing  to  do  this  winter  except  haul  manure  from 
town  for  his  next  year's  crop!  What  good  things  he 
has  to  eat  down  at  the  farm-house!  And  what  an  ap- 
petite he  has!  I  wish  I  could  change  places  with  him. 
For  dinner  today  we  had  venison  and  pheasant,  but 
they  tasted  like  leather.  Game  kept  a  long  time  isn't  fit 
to  eat.  .  .  .  Last  night  there  was  a  dance  on  deck, 
and  members  of  the  Sports  Committee  were  indignant 


184  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

because  of  the  small  attendance.  "We  have  worked 
hard  to  provide  amusement,"  they  said,  "and  almost  no 
one  is  dancing."  It  has  probably  never  occurred  to  the 
members  of  the  Sports  Committee  that  they  are  a 
nuisance  rather  than  a  blessing.  It  would  be  very 
much  pleasanter  on  board  if  a  Gay  Time  had  never 
been  thought  of.  I  do  not  care  to  dance ;  nor  do  I  care 
to  have  members  of  the  Sports  Committee  urge  me 
to  dance.  If  I  care  to  play  quoits,  or  any  other  of  the 
deck  games,  I  do  not  need  a  Sports  Committee  to  urge 
me.  The  members  of  the  Sports  Committee  think  it 
an  outrage  that  Adelaide  does  not  dance,  and  look  at 
me  reproachfully.  I  tell  them  I  had  nothing  to  do 
with  it ;  that  her  parents  are  church  members,  and  do 
not  believe  in  dancing.  This  also  greatly  astonishes 
them.  It  wouldn't  surprise  me  if  the  members  of  the 
Sports  Committee  did  not  finally  get  into  trouble  with 
some  of  the  other  passengers  who  want  to  be  let  alone. 
I  hear  a  good  deal  of  grumbling  in  the  smoking-room 
from  men  who  are  being  constantly  urged  to  dance, 
take  part  in  the  concert,  play  skittles,  or  quoits,  or 
deck  billiards,  or  sea  croquet.  The  members  of  the 
Sports  Committee  remind  me  of  five  or  six  men  who 
decide  that  a  town  needs  another  lodge,  and  bore  all  the 
other  citizens  to  join.  Wherever  you  go,  on  land  or 
sea,  you  find  impudent  men  who  urge  others  to  do 
things  there  is  no  necessity  for  doing.  Our  pastor,  the 
tall  clergyman  heretofore  mentioned,  is  far  more  con- 
siderate of  us  than  members  of  the  Sports  Committee. 
Sunday  morning  he  sends  a  steward  about  the  deck 
tolling  a  gong,  to  give  notice  that  religious  services  will 
shortly  be  held  in  the  music-room ;  but  those  who  do 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          185 

not  care  to  attend  are  not  reprimanded  by  the  holy  man 
for  absence.  I  thoroughly  dislike  a  man  who  is  forever 
protesting  because  others  do  not  accept  his  notions,  or 
admire  whatever  he  happens  to  admire.  Always  re- 
member that  what  you  regard  as  the  greatest  thing 
in  the  world  may  be  regarded  as  the  most  useless  by 
many  worthy  and  intelligent  people. 


FRIDAY,  FEBRUARY  21. — On  this  ship  are  eighteen 
thousand  frozen  sheep  carcasses,  en  route  from  Aus- 
tralia to  London.  In  order  to  keep  this  meat  prop- 
erly, great  refrigerators  are  necessary.  This  frozen- 
meat  trade  is  the  source  of  Australia's  prosperity ;  be- 
fore it  was  inaugurated,  Australian  sheep  were  not 
worth  much  except  for  their  wool  and  tallow;  old- 
timers  hi  Australia  remember  when  a  sheep  carcass 
might  be  bought  for  a  shilling.  This  frozen-meat  trade 
is  also  carried  on  between  South  America  and  Eng- 
land, and  the  result  is  that  the  English  have  cheap 
meat.  The  people  of  the  United  States  might  have 
cheap  meat,  also,  were  it  not  for  the  tariff.  Our  ad- 
miration for  the  farmer  is  so  great  that  we  pay  a  third 
or  half  more  for  meat  than  is  necessary,  in  order  that 
the  farmer  may  receive  high  prices  for  his  live-stock. 
When  an  American  goes  to  a  meat  market,  would  he 
cheerfully  pay  thirty  cents  instead  of  twenty  for  a  piece 
of  meat  were  it  not  for  his  Statesmen?  I  have  always 
doubted  that  the  people  see  the  advantage  of  a  high 
tariff ;  it  is  the  Statesmen  who  are  able  to  figure  it  out. 
.  .  .  The  men  who  thought  of  the  frozen-meat 


186  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

scheme  did  a  lot  for  humanity,  but  probably  no  one 
knows  who  they  are ;  hundreds  of  men  had  a  little  to 
do  with  it.  ...  The  captain  says  a  ship  loaded 
with  frozen  meat  arrives  in  England  from  Australia 
or  South  America  every  day  of  the  year.  .  .  .  The 
"Anchises,"  on  its  last  voyage  out  to  Australia,  was 
in  a  great  storm  in  the  Bay  of  Biscay,  and  the  ship's 
doctor  was  seasick  four  days.  "Tell  me,"  I  said  to  the 
doctor  today,  "how  a  big  storm  at  sea  looks."  "Blessed 
if  I  know,"  he  replied;  "I  was  sick  in  bed;  I  didn't 
see  anything  of  it."  .  .  .  My  dining-room  steward 
says  the  captain  is  always  sick  for  a  day  or  two  after 
leaving  port,  but  the  other  ship  employees  deny  this. 
They  say  that  on  leaving  port  the  captain  has  his 
meals  served  in  his  room,  which  is  near  the  bridge,  and 
thus  the  story  of  seasickness  started.  .  .  .  We  have 
had  a  bad  sea  all  day,  with  drizzling  rain.  Not  many 
are  sick,  owing  to  the  ship's  unusual  steadiness.  It 
rolls  and  pitches,  but  gently,  and  I  wonder  the  "An- 
chises" is  not  famous  the  world  over  for  its  unusual 
sea-going  qualities.  Some  ships  cut  up  at  sea,  how- 
ever carefully  they  were  built,  while  occasionally  one 
will  prove  unusually  steady.  The  "Maunganui"  was 
a  big  ship,  and  very  handsome,  but  it  had  a  certain 
little  movement  of  its  own  that  was  atrocious.  While 
lying  in  my  bed,  the  ship  came  up  under  me  in  such  a 
way  as  to  make  me  feel  as  though  I  were  hanging  on  a 
clothesline,  with  the  back  of  my  head  dangling  against 
my  heels.  .  .  .  The  English  have  many  customs 
and  pronunciations  I  do  not  understand.  How  much 
do  you  suppose  a  hundredweight  is  in  England?  Not 
a  hundred  pounds,  but  a  hundred  and  twelve  pounds. 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          187 

A  ton,  consequently,  is  not  2,000  pounds,  but  2,240 
pounds;  and  this  system  bothers  every  country  with 
which  England  does  business.  The  English  also  use 
the  term  guinea  in  reckoning  money,  although  there  is 
no  such  coin,  nor  is  English  paper  money  issued  in 
guineas.  A  guinea  is  as  much  more  than  $5  as  a  pound 
is  less.  If  the  people  of  the  United  States  should  in- 
vent a  slang  term  meaning  $1.03,  and  occasionally  use 
it  in  reckoning  money,  instead  of  the  dollar,  it  would 
be  about  the  same  thing  as  the  English  custom  of  occa- 
sionally dragging  out  the  word  guinea,  and  using  it, 
to  confuse  strangers.  .  .  .  Some  Americans  say, 
"Don't  you  know?"  in  conversation,  and  it  is  a  very 
bad  habit,  since  the  term  is  meaningless,  and  soon  gets 
on  the  nerves  of  the  listener.  The  English  make  fun 
of  the  expression,  and  represent  all  Americans  as  say- 
ing "Don't  you  know?"  It  is  a  fact  that  too  many 
of  them  do.  But  Australians  add,  "You  see"  to  their 
statements  a  great  deal.  I  believe  a  majority  of  the 
Australians  say  "  Yis,"  instead  of  "Yes,"  and  they  have 
many  other  oddities  of  speech  which  grate  on  the 
nerves  of  Americans,  who  believe  in  pure  as  well  as  free 
speech.  .  .  .  On  a  rough  night,  the  squeaks  in  a 
ship  sleeping-room  are  worth  mentioning.  Last  night 
as  I  lay  in  bed,  I  made  note  of  the  squeaks,  and  could 
distinctly  count  four  different  ones :  two  for  each 
pitch,  and  two  for  each  roll.  When  the  weather  is 
fine,  there  is  no  strain  on  the  ship,  and  the  squeaks  dis- 
appear. .  .  .  This  morning  at  10  o'clock  the  cap- 
tain made  a  calculation,  and  said  the  time  in  Atchison 
was  10  P.  M.  Thursday  night.  He  showed  me  how  he 
figured  it.  Atchison  is  in  96  degrees  longitude ;  there- 


188  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

fore  it  is  six  hours  and  twenty-four  minutes  behind 
Greenwich  tune.  The  ship  today  is  in  80  degrees  longi- 
tude, and  therefore  five  hours  and  twenty  minutes 
ahead  of  Greenwich.  To  be  exact,  the  difference  in 
time  between  Atchison  and  the  position  of  the  ship 
today  is  eleven  hours  and  forty-four  minutes.  .  .  . 
The  lady  who  has  five  children  and  two  nurses  on  board 
says  that  babies  should  be  made  to  mind  when  six 
months  old.  I  told  her  that  in  America  we  did  not 
begin  spanking  that  young ;  that  our  rule  was  to  spank 
girl  babies  at  eight  months,  and  boy  babies  at  one  year. 
.  .  .  Which  recalls  the  fact  that  I  have  lately  been 
reading  R.  A.  Wallace's  "Malay  Archipelago."  Wal- 
lace spent  several  years  in  that  section  in  hunting  the 
orang-utan,  the  monkey-like  animal  which  is  most  like 
man.  One  day  he  killed  an  adult  female,  and  found 
that  it  had  a  baby  six  or  seven  weeks  old.  This  he 
tried  to  raise,  hoping  to  present  it  to  the  British  Mu- 
seum. He  found  the  baby  orang-utan  very  much  like 
a  human  baby.  It  cried  for  food,  or  when  uncomfort- 
able, and  became  so  badly  spoilt  that  he  was  com- 
pelled to  spank  it  when  it  became  four  or  five  months 
old.  Unfortunately  the  little  orang-utan  contracted 
an  illness  about  this  time,  and  all  Professor  Wallace 
could  do  was  not  sufficient  to  save  its  life. 


SATURDAY,  FEBRUARY  22. — A  howling  gale  has  been 
raging  all  day.  On  the  upper  deck  this  afternoon,  many 
of  the  passengers  were  soaked  by  a  wave  which  came 
aboard.  The  wind  is  following  us,  and  pushing  the 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          189 

ship  along ;  the  sailors  say  that  a  head-wind  would  have 
resulted  in  as  bad  a  day  as  is  usually  seen  at  sea.  The 
decks  are  slippery,  and  those  who  go  out  are  in  constant 
danger  of  being  soaked  with  spray.  For  a  wonder,  I  am 
not  seasick,  and  spent  my  time  talking  with  passengers 
who  have  visited  strange  places.  One  man  lived  for  a 
time  in  one  of  the  remote  islands  of  the  Malay  archi- 
pelago, where  the  natives  wear  very  little  clothing,  and 
he  says  the  men  have  the  handsomest  figures  he  has 
ever  seen;  that  the  marble  figures  in  art  galleries  do 
not  equal  living  examples  in  Borneo.  The  figures  of 
the  men  are  much  superior  to  the  figures  of  the  women. 
Occasionally  a  very  young  girl  will  have  a  good  figure, 
but  never  equal  to  a  boy  of  the  same  age;  men  of 
thirty  have  splendid  figures,  whereas  women  of  that 
age  have  no  figures  at  all.  .  .  .  A  bird  known  as 
the  hornbill  is  found  in  Borneo.  When  the  female  has 
laid  a  sufficient  number  of  eggs,  the  male  seals  her  up 
in  the  nest,  which  is  in  a  hollow  tree,  and  compels  her 
to  sit  until  germination  takes  place.  While  the  fe- 
male is  a  prisoner,  the  male  feeds  her  faithfully.  An- 
other bird  deposits  its  eggs  in  a  pile,  covers  them  over 
with  sand,  and  leaves  hatching  to  the  sun.  A  half- 
dozen  hens  will  place  their  eggs  in  the  same  pile.  When 
the  eggs  are  hatched,  the  young  are  immediately  able 
to  look  after  themselves.  ...  In  some  of  the 
islands  of  the  archipelago  there  are  no  judges,  courts, 
or  policemen,  yet  the  natives  are  well  behaved,  and 
crime  is  almost  unknown.  This,  my  informant  says, 
is  probably  the  natural  state  of  man ;  wherever  crime 
is  rampant  among  savages,  it  has  usually  been  intro- 
duced by  members  of  civilized  races.  In  a  state  of 


190  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

nature,  a  man  soon  learns  that  if  he  expects  his  rights, 
he  must  respect  the  rights  of  others;  therefore  if  he 
desires  peaceable  possession  of  his  house,  or  his  cattle, 
or  his  wives,  he  must  respect  the  property  rights  of 
others.  Crime  seems  to  be  the  product  of  civilization, 
and  not  of  savagery.  .  .  .  Captain  Warrall  says 
there  is  nothing  in  the  story  that  he  becomes  seasick 
every  time  he  leaves  port.  But  he  says  it  is  a  fact  that 
when  he  goes  to  sea  after  a  long  stay  on  land,  he  suffers 
with  a  headache  for  several  hours.  This  headache  is 
due  to  the  motion  of  the  ship,  and  he  believes  most 
sea-going  men  are  affected  in  the  same  way.  The 
second  engineer  told  me  he  had  the  same  experience 
as  the  captain,  and  my  room  steward  says  that  on  leav- 
ing London  or  Sydney  he  always  gets  a  headache,  which 
does  not  entirely  disappear  until  the  second  day  out. 
.  .  .  In  the  old  days  when  I  was  a  reporter  on  the 
Atchison  Globe,  I  thought  it  a  good  item  when  I  found 
a  farmer's  boy  with  forty  rabbits.  I  found  a  better 
rabbit  story  than  that  today.  On  this  ship  are  one 
hundred  and  eighty  thousand  frozen  rabbits,  en  route 
for  London,  every  one  of  them  trapped.  Rabbits  in  our 
country  are  ruined  by  being  shot;  we  have  never 
learned  the  art  of  trapping  them.  I  have  been  familiar 
with  rabbits  all  my  life,  but  never  knew  a  man  who 
could  trap  them.  In  Australia,  rabbit-catching  is  a 
trade,  and  the  rabbit-catchers  have  a  union,  which  was 
raising  quite  a  disturbance  while  I  was  there,  by  threat- 
ening a  strike.  The  rabbits  caught  in  Australia  and 
shipped  to  England  bring  in  a  tremendous  sum  of 
money  annually ;  I  have  forgotten  the  figures,  but  the 
total  is  enormous.  Rabbits  were  imported  into  Aus- 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          191 

tralia  by  members  of  an  energetic  Sports  Committee. 
In  the  early  days  certain  of  the  citizens  of  Australia 
said :  "Our  people  have  no  amusement ;  let  us  import 
rabbits  from  England,  that  there  may  be  something  to 
hunt."  So  a  Sports  Committee  was  formed,  and  mem- 
bers of  it  held  public  meetings,  and  passed  subscrip- 
tion papers,  and  abused  those  who  did  not  give.  As  a 
result  of  it  all,  rabbits  were  imported  from  England, 
and  they  are  now  a  far  greater  pest  than  English  spar- 
rows are  in  the  United  States. 


SUNDAY,  FEBRUARY  23. — Our  tall  pastor  conducted 
Holy  Communion  services  at  7  o'clock  this  morning, 
in  the  music-room.  There  were  four  present :  the 
pastor,  his  wife,  his  nurse  maid,  and  myself.  I  am  a 
very  early  riser,  and  this  service  was  the  only  thing  going 
on ;  besides,  I  nearly  always  sympathize  with  a  small 
attendance.  Our  pastor  carries  two  uniforms  with 
him ;  a  white  one  fringed  with  black,  and  another  en- 
tirely of  black,  which  he  wore  this  morning.  I  am  in- 
clined to  believe  that  he  is  Low  Church.  The  most 
animated  and  vicious  church  row  I  was  ever  familiar 
with  started  because  a  certain  pastor  insisted  on  using 
wafers  in  his  communion  service,  whereas  a  bossy 
woman  in  the  congregation  preferred  bread.  Bread 
is  Low  Church ;  wafers  represent  the  High,  I  am  told. 
.  .  .  Although  only  three  persons  attended  the 
communion  service,  out  of  a  total  of  possibly  three 
hundred  on  the  ship,  our  pastor  does  not  go  around 
making  sneering  remarks  about  his  efforts  not  being 


192  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

appreciated,  as  do  members  of  the  Sports  Committee. 
I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  the  tall  pastor  is  right. 
The  communion  service  was  advertised  by  posting  no- 
tice of  it  on  the  bulletin  board.  The  passengers  know 
about  hell,  and  about  its  rewards  offered  by  the  church ; 
the  pastor  is  quite  right  in  letting  them  alone.  As  old- 
fashioned  children  used  to  say,  you  can  lead  a  horse  to 
water,  but  you  can't  make  him  drink.  .  .  .  We  feel 
tonight  that  we  are  almost  within  sight  of  Durban ;  we 
are  still  more  than  two  thousand  miles  away,  but  we 
should  be  there  in  six  more  days,  and  we  shall  not  mind 
the  last  two  or  three,  in  making  preparations  to  land. 
The  sun  came  out  this  afternoon,  and  the  sea  is 
smoother,  so  that  we  are  all  feeling  better.  .  .  . 
Back  of  the  smoking-room  there  is  a  balcony  where  the 
passengers  often  sit.  The  young  engineers  also  come  up 
from  the  deck  below,  and  sit  in  the  balcony  at  times, 
when  off  duty.  I  have  become  acquainted  with  a  num- 
ber of  them,  and  ask  them  questions  about  the  sea. 
They  explained  to  me  where  the  Pacific  ocean  ends,  and 
the  Indian  ocean  begins.  The  line  is  somewhere  in  the 
vicinity  of  Melbourne,  so  that  Australia  is  partly  in 
the  Indian  ocean  and  partly  in  the  Pacific.  Flowing 
eastward  from  Africa,  there  is  a  great  current.  After 
reaching  the  vicinity  of  Melbourne  and  Tasmania 
the  current  turns,  and  flows  westward  five  or  six  thou- 
sand miles.  The  two  currents  are  a  thousand  miles 
apart.  The  "Anchises"  came  out  in  the  current  flow- 
ing eastward,  and  did  not  stop  at  Durban,  but,  on  its 
homeward  voyage,  it  is  in  the  current  flowing  westward. 
The  engineers  say  this  current  probably  caused  the 
Indian  ocean  to  be  distinguished  from  the  Pacific.  .  .  . 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          193 

At  dinner  tonight,  the  decline  of  American  shipping 
came  up.  "When  I  went  to  sea  as  a  boy,"  Captain 
Warrall  said,  "the  American  clipper  ships  were  the 
pride  and  envy  of  all  seamen.  They  could  sail  all 
around  the  English,  and  the  Maine  Yankees  could  do 
it  today,  as  they  have  repeatedly  proven  in  the  in- 
ternational yacht  races.  I  often  think  it  is  incorrect 
to  speak  of  the  decline  of  American  shipping.  Some  of 
the  finest  ships  afloat  should  carry  the  stars  and  stripes, 
since  they  are  owned  and  controlled  by  American 
capitalists.  Were  it  not  for  the  American  policy  of 
protection,  the  seas  would  glisten  with  the  stars  and 
stripes.  As  a  famous  American  says,  'There's  a  Rea- 
son '  for  American  cargoes  being  carried  hi  foreign  ships. 
The  reason  is  that  English  seamen  receive  about  half 
as  much  pay  as  your  seamen  receive.  The  fact  that 
you  Yankees  do  not  own  ships  is  really  another  of  your 
cute  tricks;  you  get  your  carrying  done  cheaper  in 
another  way."  ...  A  citizen  of  Melbourne  was  at 
the  table,  and  he  said  he  saw  the  fleet  of  American  war- 
ships come  into  that  harbor  a  few  years  ago.  He 
spoke  very  highly  of  the  crews ;  he  was  on  the  streets 
of  Melbourne  constantly,  and  saw  thousands  of  Amer- 
ican sailors,  but  did  not  see  one  who  was  drunk  or  rude. 
It  is  the  commonest  sort  of  thing  here  to  hear  both 
English  and  Colonists  speak  in  the  highest  possible 
terms  of  America  and  the  American  people.  ...  I 
frequently  hear  this,  too:  "You  Americans  give  tips 
too  liberally."  So  far  as  I  am  concerned,  I  only  con- 
form to  a  custom  established  by  the  English.  I  give 
because  it  is  the  custom,  and  give  no  more  than  seems 
to  be  necessary  to  prevent  a  riot.  The  English  also 


194  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

have  an  exaggerated  notion  of  tipping  in  America. 
One  of  them  told  me  today  that  he  understood  that 
when  a  bell-boy  took  a  guest  to  a  room  in  an  American 
hotel,  he  was  impudent  unless  he  received  a  dollar. 
Nothing  in  the  story,  of  course ;  and  many  of  the  other 
stories  told  of  Americans  over  here  are  equally  untrue 
and  absurd.  .  .  .  On  the  "Maunganui,"  in  which 
I  sailed  from  New  Zealand  to  Australia,  there  was  no 
concert.  But  an  active,  meddlesome  man  could  have 
arranged  one,  and  organized  a  Sports  Committee  to 
unnecessarily  bother  at  least  three-fourths  of  the  pas- 
sengers. Behave  yourself,  and  let  others  alone,  is  a 
good  rule.  .  .  .  At  3  o'clock  this  afternoon  a 
woman  slipped  into  the  music-room,  and  began  sing- 
ing, playing  her  own  accompaniments.  There  is  noth- 
ing quite  so  absurd  as  an  amateur  singer  who  cannot 
sing  much,  and  who  is  quavery  and  uncertain.  This 
woman  was  very  bad,  and  I  understand  she  is  to  ap- 
pear at  the  Grand  Concert  arranged  by  the  Sports 
Committee. 


MONDAY,  FEBRUARY  24. — There  is  a  sick  woman  on 
board,  and  the  other  women  pay  her  a  great  deal  of 
attention.  Two  of  them  attend  her  constantly,  in 
her  room  and  on  deck,  and  a  dozen  others  would  gladly 
do  as  much,  if  opportunity  presented.  Another  woman 
passenger  looks  after  the  sick  woman's  two  children. 
.  .  .  There  is  also  a  sick  man  on  board.  He  is  very 
ill,  and  I  doubt  if  he  will  live  to  reach  Liverpool.  Occa- 
sionally, on  fine  days,  a  steward  brings  him  on  deck, 
where  he  looks  pale  and  unhappy,  and  pants  for  breath, 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          195 

but  as  a  rule  he  is  confined  to  his  stuffy  room,  where 
no  one  sees  him  except  the  doctor.  I  have  never  seen 
a  sick  man  more  completely  neglected,  whereas  the 
woman  passenger  who  is  ill  receives  every  possible 
attention.  The  women  say  the  sick  man  prefers  to  be 
let  alone,  but  I  don't  believe  it.  The  sick  man  is  a 
tragedy  in  loneliness.  He  came  out  on  the  "Anchises" 
from  London,  hoping  the  voyage  would  benefit  him, 
but  it  has  harmed  him  instead.  .  .  .  The  sky  is 
very  brilliant  at  night,  and  we  see  many  shooting  stars  ; 
and  every  tune  we  see  a  shooting  star  we  wish  that  Mr. 
Riley  will  fall  overboard.  Mr.  Riley  is  indulging  ha  a 
great  big  drunk,  and  I  hear  he  has  borrowed  money 
from  half  the  men  on  board,  promising  to  pay  on  ar- 
rival at  Durban.  Mr.  Riley  is  a  very  active  member 
of  the  Sports  Committee,  and  prominent  in  everything 
except  the  Holy  Communion  services  held  every  Sun- 
day morning.  I  do  not  believe  he  has  heard  of  these, 
as  he  gambles  in  the  smoking-room  until  a  late  hour 
every  night,  and  does  not  get  up  very  early.  If  Mr. 
Riley  should  hear  of  the  early  communion  service  in 
the  music-room,  he  would  certainly  advise  the  tall 
pastor  as  to  its  ceremonies,  for  he  offers  advice  in  every- 
thing else.  My  room  is  near  the  bar,  and  I  never  go 
to  it  that  I  do  not  hear  Mr.  Riley  calling  on  the  bar- 
keeper to  hurry  along  the  grog.  Mr.  Riley  also  has 
a  very  irritating  laugh,  and  I  have  come  to  dislike  him 
as  much  as  a  menagerie  monkey  dislikes  a  boy.  Last 
night  there  was  a  dance  held  near  my  room,  and  this, 
in  addition  to  Mr.  Riley  and  the  bar,  kept  me  awake 
until  long  after  midnight.  .  .  .  "Of  course  you 
know  why  the  men  wear  colored  socks,"  a  man  said 


196  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

to  me  on  deck  last  night.  "It  is  because  colored  socks 
do  not  show  dirt,  and  can  be  worn  until  they  are  filthy. 
I  wear  white  socks,  and  probably  change  them  oftener 
than  any  other  passenger  on  the  ship,  but  I  think  I  am 
a  marked  man  because  of  my  white  socks.  I  often 
catch  the  other  passengers  looking  at  my  feet  in  won- 
der." I  asked  him  if  he  also  wore  a  night-gown,  in- 
stead of  pajamas,  and  he  said  he  did,  whereupon  we 
organized  a  club,  as  I  also  wear  white  socks  and  a 
night-gown.  Pajamas  do  not  seem  enough  of  a  change 
from  pants  and  shirts,  and  I  cannot  sleep  in  them ;  and 
colored  socks  irritate  my  ankles.  .  .  .  On  the  ship, 
children  are  almost  universally  called  kids,  or  kiddies, 
another  form  of  bad  English  which  Americans  deplore. 
There  are  eighteen  children  on  board,  and  the  ship  re- 
sembles a  nursery.  Even  the  stewards  privately  com- 
plain of  the  incessant  racket.  This  morning  most  of 
the  passengers  shifted  to  the  port  side  of  the  deck,  but 
we  remained  on  the  starboard  side,  because  all  of  the 
children  went  with  the  crowd.  "You  must  be  enjoy- 
ing a  quiet  and  pleasant  day,"  the  deck  steward  said 
to  us.  A  good  many  of  the  passengers  had  their  chairs 
shifted  back  to  the  starboard  side,  and  I  heard  them 
grumbling  about  the  noise;  from  which  I  am  led  to 
believe  that  if  the  passengers  spoke  their  minds  freely, 
a  protest  would  go  up  to  the  captain  about  Mr.  Riley, 
the  Sports  Committee,  and  the  "kiddies."  ...  A 
passenger  was  telling  today  of  a  man  he  once  knew  in 
Melbourne  who  took  thirty  drinks  of  whisky  a  day. 
Finally,  during  an  illness,  the  doctor  advised  him  that 
he  must  be  more  temperate ;  that  twenty  drinks  a  day 
were  enough.  The  man  tried  twenty  drinks  a  olay,  but 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.  197 

the  almost  total  abstinence  from  alcohol  killed  him. 
.  .  .  A  prominent  citizen  of  Sydney,  with  whom  I 
talk  a  great  deal,  says  many  of  his  fellow-citizens  be- 
lieve that  if  the  government  had  kept  out  of  railroad 
building,  and  left  it  to  private  enterprise,  the  country 
would  have  many  more  miles  of  railroad,  and  double 
its  present  population.  Considering  the  resources  of 
the  country,  the  railroad  facilities  of  Australia  are  in- 
significant. There  are  half  a  dozen  different  railroads 
running  finer  trains  hi  little  Kansas  than  may  be  seen 
in  Australia.  And  both  freight  and  passenger  rates 
are  lower  in  Kansas  than  in  Australia;  service  is 
better,  and  the  employees  receive  higher  wages.  There 
is  something  wrong  with  the  Australian  railways,  and 
I  believe  it  is  government  ownership. 


TUESDAY,  FEBRUARY  25.— Today  we  had  a  cricket 
match  between  members  of  the  crew  and  the  passen- 
gers. Score,  29  to  27,  in  favor  of  the  crew.  The  fea- 
tures of  the  game  were :  1.  The  batting  of  Mr.  Connell, 
who  sits  at  our  table;  2.  The  bowling  (which  means 
pitching)  of  Mr.  Connell ;  3.  The  bad  playing  of  Mr. 
Riley,  whom  we  hate;  4.  The  appearance  of  a  Mr. 
May,  a  passenger,  as  a  barracker  for  the  crew.  A  bar- 
racker  in  cricket  means  the  same  thing  as  a  fan  in  base- 
ball, and  Mr.  May's  line  of  talk  in  making  fun  of  the 
passenger  players  was  very  good.  I  coached  him  a 
little  in  baseball  talk,  and  the  mean  way  in  which  he 
said,  "Take  him  out!"  when  a  pitcher  was  hit  freely, 
was  quite  a  pleasant  reminder  of  home.  .  .  .  One 


198  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

of  the  players  in  the  ship's  team  was  the  young  man 
who  appears  when  you  press  a  button  in  the  smoking- 
room  ;  in  short,  he  is  one  of  two  bartenders  employed 
on  the  "Anchises."  This  young  man  was  a  particu- 
larly good  pitcher.  The  best  batter  on  the  ship's  team 
was  the  second  officer.  There  is  a  democracy  in  sport 
which  levels  all  rank.  The  game  lasted  nearly  two 
hours,  and  I  picked  up  a  smattering  of  the  rules.  There 
are  eleven  players  on  a  side,  and  each  player  must  take 
his  turn  at  batting ;  but  the  best  pitchers  of  the  team 
may  do  all  the  pitching.  Before  a  batter  is  out,  the 
pitcher  must  knock  down  the  wicket  with  the  ball ; 
sometimes  a  batter  knocks  the  ball  about  a  long  time 
before  he  is  out.  Mr.  Connell,  who  sits  at  our  table, 
made  nineteen  scores  before  they  got  him  out,  and 
batted  three-quarters  of  an  hour.  ...  A  good  many 
of  the  passengers  are  mining  men  from  South  Africa. 
Among  these  is  a  man  who  was  born  in  America,  but 
who  has  lived  among  Englishmen  so  long  that  he  cannot 
be  distinguished  from  them.  He  married  an  English 
woman,  and  has  three  children  who  have  a  very  rich 
brogue.  The  man  told  me  today  that  he  very  natur- 
ally fell  into  the  ways  of  the  English  within  a  year  after 
going  to  South  Africa,  and  that  now  our  pronunciations 
amuse  him  as  much  as  they  amuse  the  English.  He 
plays  cricket,  likes  it  better  than  baseball,  and  pitches 
with  the  peculiar  twist  which  distinguishes  the  English 
game.  .  .  .  This  evening  I  saw  a  man  sitting  on 
deck  apparently  curling  his  moustache.  Later  it  de- 
veloped that  he  was  getting  a  string  around  an  aching 
tooth;  this  accomplished,  he  pulled  the  tooth  with  a 
single  jerk.  He  said  to  me :  "In  a  year  or  two  I  shall 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          199 

have  them  all  out,  and  put  in  a  full  set  of  good  teeth." 
All  the  people  here  seem  to  look  forward  to  the  tune 
when  they  will  have  all  their  teeth  out,  and  put  in  a 
full  set  of  the  kind  supplied  by  dentists.  One  of  the 
first  things  you  notice  here  is  the  great  number  of  peo- 
ple with  full  sets  of  false  teeth.  I  believe  I  could  name 
a  dozen  comparatively  young  women  on  this  ship  who 
have  no  teeth  of  their  own.  .  .  .  We  have  been 
in  the  Southeast  trade-winds  several  days ;  the  smoke 
from  our  funnels  is  always  ahead  of  us.  On  this  track 
the  wind  blows  in  the  same  direction  for  months  at  a 
tune;  there  is  also  a  current  flowing  with  the  wind. 
A  thousand  miles  south  of  us,  the  current  flows  east- 
ward, and  the  winds  blow  eastward  as  steadily  as 
they  blow  westward  here.  .  .  .  There  is  gossip 
on  board  to  the  effect  that  the  two  women  pas- 
sengers who  have  been  nursing  the  sick  woman, 
have  quarreled.  The  invalid  is  carried  on  deck 
every  fine  day,  and  reclines  on  a  cot,  and  it  has 
been  remarked  that  one  of  her  volunteer  nurses  has 
disappeared;  she  is  sulking  in  her  room  over  some 
affront  offered  her  by  the  other  volunteer  nurse.  The 
passengers  are  much  interested  in  the  row.  The  nurse 
who  is  still  on  duty  will  leave  the  ship  next  Sunday,  at 
Durban,  and  her  rival  will  have  a  clear  field  during  the 
run  of  nearly  three  weeks  to  Liverpool.  The  invalid 
was  injured  in  a  hunting  accident ;  her  horse  fell  while 
going  over  a  hedge.  She  is  a  particularly  nice  woman, 
and  one  of  the  amusements  on  deck  is  to  visit  with  her 
as  much  as  the  nurses  will  allow.  And  she  has  a  baby 
boy  called  "Captain,"  who  is  loved  by  everybody. 
.  .  .  On  deck  this  afternoon,  a  woman  ordered  her 


200  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

two  boys  to  go  to  their  room,  and  wash  their  faces. 
Much  to  my  surprise,  they  did  it.  In  America,  when  a 
woman  tells  her  child  to  do  anything,  he  attempts  to 
argue  her  out  of  the  notion,  and  usually  succeeds. 
The  children  on  the  ship  are  somewhat  annoying; 
not  because  they  do  not  mind  well,  but  because  they 
are  left  to  themselves.  Their  mothers  are  generally 
members  of  the  Sports  Committee,  and  their  nurses 
are  flirting  with  members  of  the  crew.  There  is  one 
very  noisy  youngster  who  is  rapidly  driving  me  to  dis- 
traction. She  has  a  nurse,  but  I  have  not  seen  the  nurse 
all  day.  .  .  .  The  mother  of  a  ten-year-old  boy 
on  board  says  he  does  not  know  anything  about  money ; 
that  he  can't  tell  a  shilling  from  a  penny.  At  home,  a 
boy  of  that  age  would  be  packing  a  newspaper  route, 
and  know  all  about  money.  I  particularly  admired 
Captain  Trask,  of  the  "Sonoma,"  because  he  told  me 
two  of  his  sons  were  carrying  newspaper  routes.  That's 
the  way  to  bring  up  a  boy  in  town ;  buy  him  a  news- 
paper route  by  the  time  he  is  nine  or  ten  years  old,  and 
let  him  learn  who  is  good,  and  who  is  not.  .  .  .  Mr. 
Riley,  who  has  not  yet  fallen  overboard,  although  all 
of  us  have  wished  it  on  every  shooting  star  since  leav- 
ing Adelaide,  believes  he  is  the  life  of  the  ship,  and  a 
general  favorite,  although  I  believe  I  have  never  known 
anyone  to  be  more  generally  disliked.  He  is  always 
half-drunk,  and  thinks  that  is  the  proper  thing  on  ship- 
board. There  is  a  disagreeable  smell  about  a  steady 
drinker,  and  Mr.  Riley  has  it  in  a  very  marked  degree. 
I  once  heard  him  say  to  a  modest,  gentlemanly  man 
with  whom  he  was  arguing:  "You  must  confess  that 
you  admire  a  good  fellow  who  spends  his  money  more 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          201 

than  you  admire  the  saving,  industrious  man  who 
doesn't.  .  .  .  Mr.  Riley  is  that  sort  of  a  fool ;  and 
that  sort  is  the  very  worst  kind.  The  man  Mr.  Riley 
was  arguing  with  made  a  stinging  reply,  but  Mr.  Riley 
is  usually  so  drunk  that  he  doesn't  know  it  when  repar- 
tee goes  against  him.  .  .  .  Next  to  our  table  in 
the  dining-room  sit  a  father  and  mother  and  their  grown 
son.  Every  morning  the  wife  and  mother  gives  her 
orders  to  her  men-folks  for  the  day,  and  points  out 
what  they  did  the  day  before  that  was  displeasing. 
They  talk  in  low  tones,  but  we  can  generally  hear  what 
they  say.  The  son  seems  to  be  the  principal  culprit, 
as  he  is  paying  attention  to  a  certain  Miss  Helen  the 
mother  does  not  like ;  but  the  husband  is  well  trained, 
for  I  have  noticed  that  he  takes  his  orders  humbly. 


WEDNESDAY,  FEBRUARY  26. — This  evening  members 
of  the  crew  gave  a  concert  on  deck,  for  the  amusement 
of  the  passengers.  The  concert  did  not  begin  until  9 
o'clock,  as  most  of  the  performers  are  waiters  in  the 
dining-room,  and  they  were  compelled  to  "do  up" 
their  work  before  starting.  .  .  .  As  is  common  at 
amateur  concerts,  the  stage  was  the  best  part  of  it. 
There  were  elaborate  lighting  effects,  including  foot- 
lights, and  much  nice  furniture,  and  palms,  had  been 
loaned  for  the  occasion.  As  usual,  the  disturbance 
was  not  ten  feet  from  my  door ;  as  a  matter  of  fact,  I 
loaned  my  cabin  for  a  dressing-room.  Toward  the 
sea,  the  space  above  the  rail  was  covered  with  flags,  and 
the  result  was  a  very  elaborate  little  theatre.  Steamer- 


202  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

chairs  were  arranged  in  rows  for  the  convenience  of  the 
passengers,  and  these  chairs  are  much  more  comfort- 
able than  theatre  chairs.  As  is  customary  at  such 
events  here,  there  was  a  chairman :  John  Adams,  the 
chief  engineer,  who  announced  the  numbers,  although 
elaborate  programmes  had  been  printed,  and  sold  at  a 
shilling  each.  Mr.  Adams  sat  near  the  stage,  with  a 
table  in  front  of  him,  and  on  the  table  was  a  pitcher 
of  water  and  a  tumbler.  "The  first  item  on  the  pro- 
gramme," Mr.  Adams  announced,  "will  be  a  song  by 
W.  Mansbridge,  entitled  'Captain  Ginjah,  O.  TV" 
An  American  would  have  said,  "The  first  number  on 
the  programme,"  but  here  they  always  say  "The  first 
item  on  the  programme."  .  .  .  W.  Mansbridge 
turned  out  to  be  the  steward  who  has  charge  of  Ade- 
laide's room,  and  we  were  quite  proud  of  his  per- 
formance, as  he  was  called  back  twice.  The  affair 
throughout  was  considerably  better  than  the  average 
amateur  concert  in  a  town  the  size  of  Atchison.  The 
young  man  who  waits  on  us  in  the  dining-room  ap- 
peared as  a  female  impersonator,  but  was  very  awk- 
ward ;  in  fact,  about  the  worst  of  the  lot.  He  thought 
he  must  "act  natural,"  and  walk  about,  and  all  the 
performers  had  the  same  notion.  Another  of  the  sing- 
ers was  the  assistant  barkeeper  who  had  distinguished 
himself  the  day  before  in  a  cricket  match.  But  he  was 
painfully  frightened,  when  singing  before  an  audience, 
and  could  not  show  off  a  voice  which  was  really  quite 
good.  A  dining-room  steward  named  R.  Morris  was 
positively  clever ;  if  he  had  a  little  training,  he  could 
make  a  living  as  an  actor-singer,  as  he  has  an  ex- 
cellent voice,  and  is  young  and  good-looking.  J.  S. 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.  203 

Tait,  the  purser's  clerk,  appeared  in  a  series  of  crayon 
sketches  which  were  very  good.  Another  clever  per- 
former was  W.  A.  Dalton,  who,  I  believe,  is  store- 
keeper. ...  At  the  conclusion  of  the  entertain- 
ment, Mr.  Adams,  the  chairman,  proposed  a  vote  of 
thanks  to  Miss  Woodburn,  a  passenger,  who  had  vol- 
unteered as  accompanist.  Thereupon  the  chairman 
of  the  Sports  Committee  made  a  speech,  and  endorsed 
the  motion  to  adopt  a  vote  of  thanks  to  Miss  Wood- 
burn  ;  indeed,  he  moved  a  vote  of  thanks  not  only  to 
Miss  Woodburn,  but  to  the  captain,  crew,  etc.  At 
mention  of  his  name,  Captain  Warrall,  who  had  come 
down  quietly  from  the  upper  deck,  slipped  out ;  I  don't 
think  he  cares  much  about  mingling  with  the  passen- 
gers. Anyhow,  he  acts  bored  when  with  them,  and 
we  do  not  see  much  of  him.  But  the  proposition  of  the 
chairman  of  the  Sports  Committee  was  adopted,,  and, 
this  being  accomplished,  we  sang  "God  Save  the  King," 
and  went  to  bed,  or  to  the  smoking-room,  or  to  walk 
the  decks.  "God  Save  the  King"  is  sung  at  the  con- 
clusion of  every  entertainment  here,  including  dances ; 
it  is  the  same  air  as  our  "My  Country,  'Tis  of  Thee." 
But  the  words  are  different ;  the  English  words  begin : 
"God  save  our  gracious  king,  long  live  our  noble  king. 
Send  him  victorious,  happy  and  glorious,  long  to  reign 
over  us.  God  save  the  long."  While  we  stole  the 
tune  from  the  English,  they  stole  it  from  the  Germans ; 
so  it  is  to  the  Germans  that  both  Americans  and  Eng- 
lish should  apologize.  .  .  .  Mr.  Riley,  of  course, 
attended  the  concert,  and,  being  drunk,  and  knowing 
most  of  the  songs  on  the  programme,  sang  as  loudly  as 
the  performers,  very  much  to  the  disgust  of  the  passen- 


204  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

gers.  A  good  many  have  threatened  to  "speak"  to 
Mr.  Riley,  and  tell  him  plainly  that  he  is  a  nuisance, 
but  so  far  no  one  has  done  so,  and  he  is  still  of  the  opin- 
ion that  all  of  us  will  greatly  miss  him  when  he  leaves 
the  ship  at  Durban.  ...  I  have  had  neuralgia 
in  the  face  several  days,  and  the  ship  doctor  said  to  me : 
"When  a  man  has  used  tobacco  many  years,  and  quits, 
the  effect  upon  his  system  is  very  great.  Try  smoking 
two  strong  cigars."  I  had  his  prescription  filled  at  the 
bar,  and  enjoyed  an  exquisite  pleasure;  cigars  never 
tasted  so  good  before.  I  hoped  that  I  had  lost  my  taste 
for  them,  but  found  I  hadn't.  The  men  were  very 
much  amused  over  the  doctor's  prescription.  Did  the 
cigars  do  the  neuralgia  any  good?  The  pain  stopped 
within  five  minutes  after  I  began  smoking,  and  has  not 
returned  since.  I  smoked  only  two,  and  I  shall  not 
smoke  again  except  on  the  advice  of  a  physician. 


THURSDAY,  FEBRUARY  27. — I  find  that  Mr.  May,  the 
fine  old  gentleman  who  was  attended  by  so  many  friends 
when  he  embarked  at  Adelaide,  is  manufacturer  of 
May's  Complete  Harvester,  the  Australian  machine 
which  strips  off  the  heads  of  wheat.  This  machine 
also  threshes  the  wheat,  or  separates  it  from  the  husks, 
and,  within  an  hour  after  cutting,  the  grain  is  ready  to 
be  sent  to  market.  At  home  we  cut  wheat  with  a 
binder,  which  drops  it  hi  sheaves.  These  sheaves  are 
then  set  up  in  the  field  to  dry,  and,  in  a  few  days, 
stacked.  After  the  stack  has  gone  through  a  sweat,  a 
thresher  is  sent  for,  and  the  grain  made  ready  for 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          205 

market.  Some  farmers  thresh  out  of  the  field,  within 
a  few  weeks  after  cutting,  but  old-fashioned  farmers 
prefer  stacking.  The  Australian  way  seems  very 
much  better  than  our  way,  and  Mr.  May  says  that 
with  his  machine,  wheat  may  be  harvested  at  an  ex- 
pense of  only  25  cents  an  acre  for  labor.  The  May 
machine  sells  for  from  four  to  six  hundred  dollars,  cuts 
from  five  to  eight  feet,  and  is  drawn  by  from  four  to 
six  horses.  The  machine  has  cut  as  high  as  thirty  acres 
in  a  day,  with  everything  running  favorably,  and  has 
been  hi  practical  use  in  Australia  for  twelve  years. 
There  is  waste  in  any  method,  but  Mr.  May  says  his 
complete  harvester  saves  as  large  a  per  cent  of  the 
wheat  as  the  best  machine  manufactured  in  America. 
He  told  me  of  a  farmer  with  400  acres  of  wheat  who 
harvested  it  with  the  assistance  of  a  man  and  a  boy. 
It  is  probable  that  the  May  machine  would  not  work 
satisfactorily  hi  our  section,  although  it  might  prove 
successful  hi  the  dry  districts  further  west.  Mr.  May 
admits  that  his  complete  harvester  is  a  success  only 
when  the  wheat  is  very  dry  and  very  ripe.  A  little 
dampness  would  necessitate  the  use  of  the  older-fash- 
ioned binder.  .  .  .  Mr.  May  says  wheat-growing 
in  Australia  has  been  revolutionized  by  the  discovery 
that  the  land  needed  phosphate.  This  was  supplied 
at  a  cost  of  about  $2  an  acre,  and  the  wheat  yield 
doubled.  Virgin  land  is  now  fertilized  with  phosphate, 
which  is  drilled  in  with  the  wheat.  The  discovery  that 
the  land  needed  additional  phosphate  was  made  by  a 
young  scientist  hi  an  agricultural  college;  farmers 
everywhere  should  pay  more  attention  to  the  doings 
of  agricultural  colleges,  horticultural  societies,  etc. 


206  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

.  .  .  Another  great  machine  invented  in  Australia 
is  the  jump  plow.  Much  of  the  land  in  Australia  is 
full  of  either  stumps  or  stones.  The  jump  plow  jumps 
the  stumps  or  stones  by  means  of  a  clever  device,  the 
main  feature  of  which  is  a  hinge  attachment.  Most  of 
the  Australian  plows  are  in  gangs  of  six  to  twelve,  all 
of  them  supplied  with  the  jump  attachment.  .  .  . 
So  far  as  I  was  able  to  judge  from  what  Mr.  May  said, 
our  wheat  yield  is  one-third  or  one-fourth  greater  per 
acre,  without  fertilizer,  than  the  wheat  yield  of  Aus- 
tralia; but  our  land  costs  a  third  more.  ...  In 
Australia,  when  a  young  woman  is  called  upon  regu- 
larly by  a  young  man,  he  is  known  as  a  "follower." 
In  the  section  of  country  where  I  live,  he  would  be 
called  the  young  woman's  "steady,"  or  steady  com- 
pany. .  .  .  Nine-tenths  of  the  passengers  on  this 
ship  are  Australians  or  New-Zealanders,  en  route  to 
England,  and  most  of  them  will  return  home  by  way 
of  the  United  States,  a  route  considerably  shorter  than 
by  way  of  Cape  Town  or  the  Suez  Canal.  Most  of 
them  have  interviewed  me  about  routes,  and  I  am  now 
getting  even  with  those  American  railroads  against 
which  I  have  grudges.  .  .  .  Today  we  are  off  the 
southern  coast  of  Madagascar,  but  a  drizzly  rain  is  fall- 
ing, and  we  cannot  see  a  half-mile  from  the  ship.  At 
noon  the  distance  to  Durban  is  about  the  distance  from 
New  York  to  Chicago,  which  is  made  by  railroad  train 
in  eighteen  hours,  but  we  shall  not  make  it  under  three 
days  and  nights,  as  we  steam  only  330  miles  a  day. 
This  is  our  fifteenth  day  at  sea,  without  sight  of  land, 
and  neither  of  our  double  engines  has  stopped  once 
since  they  were  started  at  Adelaide.  .  .  .1  believe 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          207 

I  admire  our  tall  pastor  as  much  as  anyone  on  board. 
He  lets  us  all  alone,  and  does  not  ask  us  if  we  read  the 
Bible,  and  say  our  prayers.  To  let  people  alone  is  the 

most  agreeable  thing  you  can  do  for  them 

When  you  send  a  wireless  telegram  at  sea,  you  are  com- 
pelled to  sign  the  following  agreement :  "No  company 
concerned  in  the  forwarding  of  this  telegram  shall  be 
liable  for  any  loss,  injury,  or  damage  from  non-trans- 
mission or  non-delivery  or  neglect,  in  relation  to  this 
telegram,  or  delay,  or  error,  or  omission  in  the  trans- 
mission thereof,  through  whatever  cause  such  non- 
transmission,  non-delivery,  neglect,  delay,  error  or 
omission  shall  have  occurred.  Having  read  the  above 
conditions,  I  request  that  this  telegram  may  be  for- 
warded according  to  said  conditions,  by  which  I  agree 
to  be  bound."  .  .  .  Under  that  agreement,  the 
wireless  operator  might  tear  up  every  telegram,  and 
senders  would  have  no  redress.  A  wireless  contract 
is  as  one-sided  as  the  contract  you  sign  when  you  buy 
a  steamship  ticket.  When  I  bought  two  tickets  for 
Durban  from  Adelaide,  I  was  compelled  to  sign  a  con- 
tract which  relinquished  every  right  I  have  in  law.  If 
the  captain  sees  fit,  he  may  change  his  destination  from 
Durban  to  Capetown  or  Montevideo,  and  not  go  to 
Durban  at  all.  In  case  he  should  conclude  to  go  to 
London  direct,  and  not  stop  at  any  South-African  port, 
I  agreed  to  pay  him  the  price  of  two  tickets  between 
Durban  and  London.  If  for  any  reason  he  finds  it 
necessary  or  convenient  to  put  into  any  other  port,  to 
make  repairs,  I  agreed  to  pay  my  board  while  such  re- 
pairs were  being  made.  If  the  captain  should  take  a 
dislike  to  me,  and  put  me  off  on  the  coast  of  Madagas- 


208  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

car,  I  agreed  not  to  ask  damages  for  the  inconvenience 
when  I  purchased  my  tickets.  Fortunately,  these  cut- 
throat contracts  are  almost  never  enforced,  but  they 
could  be  enforced  should  necessity  arise. 


FRIDAY,  FEBRUARY  28. — This  has  been  the  most 
miserable  day  I  have  ever  spent  at  sea.  A  steady  rain 
began  falling  at  daylight,  and  continued  without  in- 
termission until  evening.  The  passengers  were  driven 
from  the  upper  deck,  and  congregated  on  one  side  of 
the  main  deck,  where  the  children  made  more  noise 
than  ever.  The  dampness  was  of  the  penetrating  kind 
that  reached  our  clothing  and  our  rooms,  and  we  could 
not  be  comfortable  anywhere.  .  .  .  About  five 
o'clock  the  rain  ceased,  and  a  boy  went  about  beating 
a  gong.  This  was  notice  of  a  meeting  of  the  general 
Sports  Committee  in  the  music-room,  to  decide  whether 
the  fancy  dress  ball  arranged  for  tonight  should  be 
given  up  on  account  of  the  rain.  The  vote  was  in  favor 
of  going  ahead  with  it.  The  sailors  at  once  began  ar- 
ranging the  dry  side  of  the  deck  into  a  ball-room,  and 
the  passengers  were  forced  to  go  to  their  cabins,  or  sit 
in  the  smoking-room.  .  .  .  The  fancy  dress  ball 
proved  to  be  more  creditable  than  was  anticipated. 
Those  who  took  part  wore  their  costumes  to  dinner  at 
7  o'clock,  and  the  children,  nurses  and  stewards  gath- 
ered in  the  main  hallway  to  see  them  go  in.  There  were 
about  twenty-five  costumes  in  all,  nearly  all  of  them 
made  on  board.  One  young  woman  appeared  as 
"Topsy,"  and  her  feet  were  bare.  Women  usually 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          209 

dislike  to  show  their  feet,  and  there  was  a  good  deal  of 
surprise  expressed  because  this  woman  appeared  with 
nothing  much  on  except  a  dress  made  of  coarse  sack- 
ing. She  not  only  appeared  barefooted  in  the  dining- 
room,  but  danced  in  her  bare  feet.  Afterwards  the 
passengers  voted  on  the  best  costume,  and  "Topsy" 
won  the  second  prize,  the  first  going  to  an  English 
actor  who  appeared  as  Cardinal  Wolsey.  .  .  .  Mr. 
Riley  borrowed  a  greasy  suit  of  working-clothes  from 
a  sailor,  and,  appearing  at  the  dance  as  a  Sundowner,  or 
tramp,  it  became  necessary  to  take  him  away.  .  .  . 
The  gents  who  appeared  in  fancy  dresses  talked  about 
the  ball  until  1 :  30  A.  M.,  as  amateur  actors  talk  about 
the  performance,  and  of  course  this  talk  centered  around 
the  bar.  As  my  room  adjoins  the  bar,  I  heard  the  talk 
and  the  accompanying  rattle  of  glasses.  So  my  dis- 
agreeable day  began  at  5 :  30  A.  M.,  and  ended  at  1 :  30 
the  following  morning.  I  shall  long  remember  Febru- 
ary 28,  1913. 


SATURDAY,  MARCH  1. — On  the  lower  deck  this  morn- 
ing there  was  a  Pillow  Fight,  arranged  by  the  Sports 
Committee.  A  spar,  or  smooth  pole,  was  fixed  about 
six  feet  from  the  deck.  Beneath  the  spar  was  arranged 
a  net  made  of  heavy  sail-cloth.  Two  men  climbed 
out  on  the  pole,  and  fought  with  pillows,  the  aim  of  each 
man  being  to  knock  his  opponent  off.  The  participants 
were  not  permitted  to  hold  to  the  pole  with  their  hands, 
and  they  fell  off  very  easily.  This  was  the  only  really 
amusing  thing  arranged  by  the  Sports  Committee  at 
many  meetings  announced  by  the  disagreeable  beating 


210  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

of  a  gong.  The  passengers  witnessed  the  pillow  fights 
from  the  deck  above,  and  screamed  with  laughter.  The 
sea  was  rough,  and  every  player  got  one  or  more  tumbles 
into  the  net.  .  .  .  Soon  after  the  pillow  fight,  I 
got  even  with  members  of  the  Sports  Committee. 
They  were  standing  on  the  weather  side  of  the  lower 
deck,  displaying  their  usual  gravity  in  superintending 
a  foolish  game,  when  a  big  wave  came  over  the  side  and 
soaked  them  all.  This  was  even  funnier  than  the  pil- 
low fight,  and  the  passengers  enjoyed  it  quite  as  much. 
.  .  .  The  storm  which  began  with  rain  yesterday 
morning,  increased  in  violence  as  the  day  wore  on,  and 
it  was  soon  necessary  to  suspend  the  sports.  By  noon, 
the  sea  was  much  rougher  than  it  has  been  at  any  time 
since  we  left  Adelaide  on  the  12th  of  last  month.  The 
passengers  dreaded  to  go  to  their  rooms,  as  all  port- 
holes were  closed ;  so  the  stewards  found  it  necessary 
to  distribute  the  little  tin  affairs  which  add  to  the  dis- 
comfort of  a  sea  voyage.  .  .  .  Throughout  the  day  I 
did  not  feel  the  slightest  discomfort  because  of  the 
terrific  motion,  and  for  the  first  time  witnessed  a  storm 
at  sea  from  the  deck  of  a  ship.  On  a  quiet  day  the  sea 
is  very  uninteresting,  but  on  a  rough  day  it  is  wonder- 
ful ;  the  waves  seem  to  fight  each  other  and  the  ship. 
Ten  or  twelve  of  the  passengers  had  gone  to  the  upper 
deck  to  finish  some  foolish  deck  game,  when  a  wave 
swept  over  them.  The  ship  reeled  from  the  blow,  and 
we  saw  the  water  pouring  in  torrents  from  the  roof  of 
the  deck  where  we  sat.  Then  down  the  stairway  came 
not  only  a  flood  of  water,  but  the  soaked  passengers 
who  had  been  playing  the  foolish  game.  They  were 
as  wet  as  though  they  had  been  in  swimming  without 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.  211 

removing  their  clothing.  The  same  wave  poured  water 
into  the  skylight  over  the  dining-room,  and  flooded 
everything.  After  that,  passengers  were  not  permitted 
on  the  storm  side  of  either  deck.  .  .  .  Late  in  the 
afternoon  I  went  to  my  room  to  take  a  nap.  In  order 
to  get  about  the  ship,  it  was  necessary  to  catch  a  quiet 
moment,  and  then  take  a  run.  I  soon  went  to  sleep 
after  reaching  my  room,  but  was  awakened  by  a  tremen- 
dous rattle  and  bang  in  the  bar,  next  door.  A  big  roll 
had  sent  most  of  the  glassware  crashing  to  the  floor, 
and  Mr.  Riley  will  be  compelled  to  drink  out  of  bottles. 
It  was  a  great  comfort  to  me  to  get  even  with  the  bar- 
room. .  .  .  The  stewards  say  the  approach  to  the 
coast  of  South  Africa  is  always  rough.  The  passengers 
are  saying  that  the  storm  will  be  very  much  worse  dur- 
ing the  night ;  that  a  sailor  told  them  so,  but  the  chief 
engineer  told  me  that  a  wireless  message  announces 
that  the  weather  at  Durban  is  calm,  and  that  we  shall 
certainly  run  out  of  the  storm  during  the  night.  .  .  . 
At  dinner,  not  half  the  passengers  were  in  their  places, 
but  Adelaide  and  I  occupied  our  usual  seats  at  table, 
although  we  had  a  difficult  time  getting  down  the 
two  stairways  to  the  dining-room.  The  dishes  were 
fenced  up,  so  that  they  could  not  roll  off  the  tables, 
and  the  port-holes  were  under  water  at  every  roll  of 
the  ship.  The  sick  man  who  has  beeii  seen  on  deck 
nearly  every  day  of  the  voyage,  surprised  us  all  by  ap- 
pearing at  dinner  for  the  first  time,  although  he  was 
almost  literally  carried  down  the  stairways,  and  across 
the  dining-room  floor.  The  diners  at  the  two  centre 
tables  were  forced  to  go  to  other  tables,  owing  to  a 
crash  in  the  skylight  above,  and  a  downpour  of  water. 


212  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

But  in  spite  of  all  this  confusion,  Mr.  Connell,  a  very 
calm  and  well-informed  man  who  sits  at  my  table,  in- 
terested me  by  telling  of  something  he  had  read  during 
the  day.  At  the  battle  of  Waterloo,  in  1812,  less  than 
170,000  men  were  engaged.  The  battle  lasted  twelve 
hours,  yet  the  casualties  amounted  to  61,000.  The 
battle  of  Lule-Burgas,  fought  between  the  Bulgarians 
and  Turks  in  1912,  lasted  five  days,  and,  although 
300,000  men  took  part  with  modern  implements  of 
war,  the  casualties  amounted  to  only  35,000.  We  mod- 
erns have  more  effective  weapons  than  the  ancients,  but 
seem  afraid  to  use  them.  The  modern  man  has  more 
sense  than  bravery.  The  old  savage  man  had  a  fool 
notion  that  it  was  bravery  to  fight  for  a  ruler,  but 
modern  man  has  discovered  that  bravery  is  to  fight 
for  himself,  and  meet  his  ordinary  difficulties  with  pa- 
tience and  fairness.  The  prizefighter  is  brave  in  that 
he  is  able  to  stand  a  great  deal  of  punishment,  but  in 
private  life  he  is  not  very  nice,  and  often  keeps  a  saloon 
and  whips  his  wife.  ...  At  dinner,  Mr.  Connell 
also  told  me  that  in  Australia,  where  the  women  have 
full  suffrage,  the  wives  of  the  workingmen  often  vote 
against  their  husbands.  In  a  certain  election  of  1911, 
the  Labor  party  demanded  the  adoption  of  a  measure 
that  would  result  in  many  strikes  and  much  disturb- 
ance. It  was  believed  that  the  measure  would  carry 
by  a  large  majority,  but  the  wives  of  the  labor  men 
generally  voted  for  peace,  and  the  measure  demanded 
by  their  husbands  was  defeated  by  two  to  one. 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          213 

SUNDAY,  MARCH  2. — I  passed  out  of  sight  of  land  at 
Adelaide,  South  Australia,  at  7 :  20  on  the  evening  of 
February  12,  and  picked  it  up  again  at  7  o'clock  this 
morning,  when  I  awoke  and  looked  out  of  the  window 
to  see  how  the  weather  was.  The  land  was  South 
Africa.  The  voyage  we  have  just  completed  takes  the 
passenger  out  of  sight  of  land  longer  than  any  other 
now  being  made  in  steamships.  There  are  longer  voy- 
ages, but  on  none  of  them  is  the  passenger  out  of  sight 
of  land  for  eighteen  days.  And  during  the  eighteen 
days  we  did  not  see  a  ship ;  no  signs  of  life  whatever, 
except  a  few  birds  and  a  few  flying-fish.  It  was  a  mo- 
notonous, dreary  experience  I  do  not  care  to  repeat. 
.  .  .  South  Africa,  as  seen  in  the  vicinity  of  Dur- 
ban, is  mountainous,  and  the  mountains  are  covered 
with  verdure.  .  .  .  By  8 : 30,  Durban  could  be 
plainly  seen,  and  it  did  not  look  unlike  a  portion  of 
Sydney,  with  its  residences  scattered  over  the  hills, 
and  almost  every  house  covered  with  red  tile  roofing 
imported  from  France.  .  .  .  The  officers  said  we 
should  tie  up  at  the  dock  by  ten  o'clock,  and  that  is 
exactly  what  we  did,  although  we  did  not  reach  the 
hotel  until  nearly  noon.  The  delay  was  caused,  it  was 
said,  by  the  slowness  of  the  doctor  and  the  customs 
officer,  but  I  did  not  see  the  doctor  at  all,  and  the  cus- 
toms officer,  when  I  finally  got  to  him,  did  not  open 
one  of  my  packages.  However,  he  charged  me  $3.75 
duty  on  a  portable  typewriter  which  I  cannot  learn  to 
use,  having  so  long  been  accustomed  to  a  different  key- 
board. Once  out  of  the  customs  house,  we  called  two 
negro  ricksha  men,  and  were  soon  on  our  way  to  the 
Marine  Hotel ;  we  avoided  the  Royal  because  we  had 


214  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

heard  Mr.  Riley  say  he  intended  to  stop  there.  Most 
of  the  passengers  will  spend  the  night  ashore,  as  a  re- 
lief from  the  long  experience  with  ship  beds  and  ship 
fare.  The  negro  ricksha  men  who  pulled  us  to  the 
hotel  wore  cow-horns  on  their  heads,  and  pieces  of 
leopard  skin  on  their  backs.  The  rickshas  were  marked : 
"For  Europeans  only,"  and  the  negroes  carried  us  to 
the  hotel  on  a  keen  trot,  for  a  shilling  each.  Our  men 
carried  cow-bells,  which  they  rang  frequently  as  warn- 
ing for  pedestrians  to  get  out  of  the  way.  ...  I 
have  not  lately  been  surprised  as  agreeably  as  I  am  in 
Durban.  Instead  of  being  a  rough,  crude  place,  it  is 
one  of  the  finest  cities  I  have  ever  seen.  The  hotel  at 
which  we  are  staying  is  as  fine  in  every  way  as  the  Aus- 
tralia in  Sydney,  a  city  of  over  half  a  million,  and  the 
price  is  the  same :  $3.60  per  day,  including  everything. 
The  town  hall  in  Durban  is  almost  as  fine  as  the  capital 
in  some  of  the  Australian  states ;  and  this  town  of  sixty 
thousand  people,  half  of  them  black,  has  parks,  busi- 
ness blocks,  zoological  gardens,  and  private  residences 
that  would  do  credit  to  any  city  of  any  size  anywhere. 
We  hired  a  new  Overland  automobile,  driven  by  an 
intelligent  Englishman,  and  although  gasoline  costs 
forty  cents  a  gallon  here,  the  charge  was  only  $3  an 
hour.  He  took  us  to  one  of  the  finest  bathing-beaches 
I  have  seen  anywhere,  and  many  of  the  hotels  around 
it  would  be  creditable  in  Atlantic  City.  Durban  is 
tropical,  and  the  luxuriant  growths  of  flowers  and  plants 
reminded  us  of  Honolulu.  Another  thing  I  did  not 
know  about  Durban  is  that  it  has  thousands  of  Hindus ; 
citizens  of  India.  All  the  servants  at  the  hotel  where 
we  are  staying  are  Hindus,  and  wear  the  picturesque 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          215 

costumes  seen  in  India ;  during  our  ride  today  we  saw 
literally  thousands  of  these  people,  and  almost  as  many 
women  and  children  as  men.  In  certain  sections  of 
Durban  you  see  only  Hindus,  and  temples  are  almost 
as  numerous  as  churches  in  other  sections  of  the  town. 
All  sorts  of  strange  shops  are  kept  by  men  with  strange 
names;  and  all  the  Indians  we  saw  look  much  more 
prosperous  than  their  relatives  in  India.  The  Hindus 
were  brought  here  by  the  English  a  good  many  years 
ago,  under  indenture  and  promise  to  return  them  to 
India  at  the  end  of  a  certain  number  of  years,  but  they 
liked  the  country,  and  most  of  them  did  not  care  to 
return.  There  are  upwards  of  a  hundred  thousand  of 
them  in  Natal,  but  their  importation  is  now  prohibited. 
The  Hindus  are  like  the  Chinese  in  that  they  are  will- 
ing to  work  and  behave,  and  their  entrance  to  most 
countries  is  therefore  prohibited.  .  .  .  We  passed 
a  sugar  mill  during  our  automobile  ride  today,  and  were 
told  that  all  the  workmen  in  the  mill,  and  in  the  great 
fields  of  cane  surrounding  it,  were  Hindus,  or  coolies. 
Just  now  the  cane  is  being  cut  and  hauled  to  the  mills. 
.  .  .  At  lunch  today,  we  saw  the  waiters  serving 
roasting-ears.  On  the  bill  of  fare  they  are  called  Mealie 
Cobs.  We  ordered  some,  and  the  waiter  offered  to 
cut  the  corn  from  the  cob.  I  ate  mine  in  true  Amer- 
ican fashion,  but  Adelaide  had  hers  cut  off  the  cob. 
The  variety  was  Early  Adams,  and  it  wasn't  very  sweet. 
The  best  thing  they  have  at  this  fine  hotel  is  pineapple. 
They  also  have  alligator  pears.  The  best  alligator 
pears  grow  in  the  Samoa  Islands,  and  we  had  them  on 
the  "Sonoma,"  but  did  not  care  for  them.  They  are 
eaten  with  pepper  and  salt  and  vinegar  and  oil;  an 


216  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

alligator  pear  is  more  vegetable  than  fruit.  Today  we 
also  had  mangoes,  which  resemble  the  American  paw- 
paw, but  they  are  much  better  fruit.  You  peel  them, 
and  eat  them  as  you  do  green  corn,  the  seed  represent- 
ing the  cob.  .  .  .  This  being  Sunday,  we  saw  two 
Salvation  Army  meetings  on  the  street.  All  the  "sol- 
diers" were  negroes,  and  there  was  the  usual  drum  in 
the  centre  of  the  circle,  and  the  usual  pleas  for  money. 
.  .  .  Now  that  I  am  out  of  Australia,  and  off  the 
"Anchises,"  which  carried  Australian  water,  I  am  free 
to  drink  all  the  water  I  want.  I  saw  so  many  false 
teeth  in  Australia,  and  heard  so  frequently  that  the 
bad  teeth  of  the  Australians  were  due  to  the  water, 
that  I  never  took  a  drink  that  my  teeth  didn't  ache. 
.  .  .  We  learned  this  evening  that  all  the  money 
Mr.  Riley  spent  in  gambling  and  drinking  was  loaned 
him  by  a  Mr.  Wilson,  who  came  ashore  this  afternoon, 
and  is  trying  hard  to  get  his  money.  At  a  late  hour, 
Mr.  Riley  had  not  been  able  to  satisfy  his  creditor. 
You  meet  strange  characters  on  ships.  Think  of  a  man 
going  to  sea  without  money,  and  being  financed  by  a 
stranger.  .  .  .  We  knew  a  woman  on  the  ship  who 
was  so  unhappy  because  of  a  big  waist  that  she  imagined 
her  husband  was  mean  to  her,  and  she  told  a  good  many 
of  the  women  that  were  it  not  for  her  children,  she 
would  seek  forgetfulness  by  enclosing  her  head  in  a 
pillow-slip,  and  inhaling  chloroform.  .  .  .  Dur- 
ban had  a  small  harbor  which  did  very  well  in  the  days 
of  small  ships,  but  when  big  ships  became  fashionable 
the  town  was  compelled  to  spend  millions  in  improve- 
ments. The  result  is  that  ships  drawing  thirty  feet 
can  tie  up  at  its  docks.  Good  coal  is  found  not  far 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          217 

from  Durban,  and  its  coal  trade  is  very  important. 
Much  of  the  coal  used  on  the  railways  in  India  comes 
from  Durban,  and  every  ship  coming  this  way  coals 
here.  .  .  .  Before  going  to  bed  tonight,  we  went 
down  in  front  of  the  hotel,  called  a  ricksha,  and  went 
for  a  ride  to  the  beach  to  cool  off.  The  negro  who 
pulled  us  was  a  huge  fellow  wearing  a  pair  of  cow-horns 
as  a  sort  of  head-dress ;  seven-tenths  of  the  hundreds 
of  ricksha  men  wear  the  same  amusing  head-dress. 
Our  man  trotted  all  the  way  to  the  beach  and  back, 
up  hill  and  down.  It  is  a  considerable  task  for  a  man 
to  pull  a  buggy  and  two  passengers  for  nearly  an  hour, 
and  always  keep  up  a  trot.  On  our  return  to  the 
hotel  at  10  p.  M.,  the  man  did  not  seem  very  tired. 
The  road  to  the  beach  was  lined  with  hundreds  of  other 
people  riding  in  rickshas,  and  there  were  many  rick- 
sha stands  on  the  way.  At  the  beach  we  saw  thousands 
of  people  sitting  around  in  chairs,  or  dining,  or  listening 
to  music.  Some  of  the  restaurants  had  moving-pic- 
ture shows  to  attract  customers.  And  it  seems  to  me 
I  never  saw  such  big  rollers  as  came  in  from  the  Indian 
ocean  at  Durban  beach.  Four  years  ago  this  beach 
was  a  dreary  piece  of  sand.  Durban  has  lately  been 
spending  money  like  a  drunken  sailor,  and  has  made 
it  pay. 


MONDAY,  MARCH  3. — Owing  to  a  tremendous  rain 
and  wind  storm,  we  have  been  confined  all  day  to  our 
rooms  at  the  hotel.  Yesterday  was  bright  and  fine, 
and  we  were  rather  disposed  to  laugh  at  the  statement 
that  this  is  the  rainy  season  in  South  Africa ;  but  the 


218  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

storm  today  has  given  us  more  confidence  in  the  guide- 
books. The  wind  was  so  strong  that  the  "Anchises," 
lying  at  its  dock,  twice  broke  its  hawsers,  and  was  only 
saved  from  drifting  by  the  prompt  use  of  the  anchors. 
The  passengers  who  were  ashore  found  it  very  difficult 
to  get  back  to  the  ship,  and  from  our  windows  at  the 
hotel  we  could  see  that  the  wind  was  doing  considerable 
damage.  .  .  .  And  this  in  spite  of  the  finest, 
largest  and  brightest  rainbow  I  have  ever  seen,  this 
morning.  .  .  .  White  women  are  scarce  in  South 
Africa.  In  the  big  dining-room  of  the  Marine  Hotel, 
at  dinner  tonight,  all  the  guests  were  men,  except  four. 
Englishmen  come  to  this  country  as  Americans  go  to 
the  Klondike.  .  .  .  The  Marine  Hotel  introduces 
one  feature  that  is  entirely  new  to  me ;  dinner  is  com- 
menced with  a  hors-d'oeuvre — a  sort  of  salad  of  pickled 
fish,  as  an  appetizer.  Then  follows  the  regular  dinner, 
starting  with  soup.  When  a  king  dines,  he  begins  with 
a  hors-d'oeuvre,  the  head  waiter  says.  .  .  .  One  of 
the  ricksha  men  who  stands  in  front  of  the  hotel  has 
carried  us  three  tunes,  and  regards  us  as  his  property. 
When  we  appear,  he  runs  up  to  us,  and  bows  almost  to 
the  ground;  if  other  ricksha  men  appear,  he  pushes 
them  angrily  away.  The  negroes  here  are  exactly  like 
our  negroes,  except  that  they  talk  Kaffir ;  we  have  not 
seen  any  who  are  able  to  speak  English  easily.  The 
negro  women  wear  their  hair  in  a  peculiar  way,  and 
many  of  them  dress  as  the  men  do.  The  ricksha  men 
who  stand  hi  front  of  the  hotel  are  always  laughing  and 
talking  in  a  noisy,  good-natured  way.  There  are  sev- 
eral tribes  of  negroes  here,  and  all  of  them  have  differ- 
ent characteristics  in  dress.  .  .  .  Before  Durban's 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          219 

present  harbor  was  completed,  passengers  disembarked 
from  ships  in  baskets.  The  big  ships,  not  being  able 
to  come  into  the  harbor,  were  met  outside  by  tenders. 
Passengers  leaving  the  ship  were  locked  in  a  huge 
basket,  and  this  basket  was  hoisted  over  the  side  with 
a  steam  which,  and  lowered  to  the  deck  of  the  tender 
rolling  alongside.  This  method  of  embarking  and  dis- 
embarking is  still  used  at  many  points  along  the  coast, 
and  we  shall  test  it  on  our  way  to  Zanzibar.  .  .  . 
The  amateur  humorist  is  a  great  task  not  only  in  private 
life,  but  in  books  as  well.  Today  I  bought  a  book  to 
obtain  information  of  the  East  Coast  route  to  England, 
but  found  it  so  full  of  jokes  that  I  could  get  no  informa- 
tion out  of  it.  Every  man,  when  he  writes  or  talks, 
thinks  he  must  use  a  great  many  jokes ;  everyone  seems 
to  make  too  much  of  the  fun,  fun,  fun,  and  laugh, 
laugh,  laugh  idea.  I  often  wish  people  were  more  seri- 
ous. .  .  .  My  next  ship  journey  will  be  up  the 
East  Coast  of  Africa  to  Aden,  and  thence  through  the 
Red  Sea  to  the  Mediterranean  and  Naples.  I  have 
spent  considerable  of  my  time  in  Durban  in  arranging 
for  a  cabin  to  myself  on  the  German  ship.  Occupying 
a  room  with  three  others  is  the  red  flag  that  brings  out 
the  bull  in  my  nature.  I  not  only  object  to  other  men 
in  a  room  with  me,  but  I  don't  like  them  very  well  in 
the  hall  outside.  I  am  particular  about  having  things 
of  my  own,  and  in  the  list,  a  sleeping-room  is  near  the 
top.  ...  In  this  fine  hotel,  it  is  impossible  to  get 
a  good  cup  of  coffee,  and  I  drink  tea  instead,  although 
I  abominate  tea.  I  have  not  had  a  decent  cup  of  coffee 
in  nearly  three  months.  As  I  am  accustomed  at  home 
to  the  best  coffee  in  the  world,  the  deprivation  is  a  se- 


220  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

vere  one.  I  have  no  doubt  that  all  the  hotels  where  I 
have  lately  been  a  guest  use  the  best  coffee  obtainable, 
but  their  way  of  making  it  is  not  my  way.  You  get 
the  best  coffee  at  home  because  it  is  made  your  way. 
.  .  .  As  in  coffee,  so  it  is  in  politics,  religion,  the 
choice  of  a  wife,  and  a  hundred  other  things :  what 
suits  others  does  not  suit  you.  You  want  coffee  made 
your  way;  and  you  are  entitled  to  it.  .  .  .  I  do 
not  say  my  way  of  making  coffee  is  the  best,  but  I  do 
say  it  suits  me  better  than  any  other  way  I  have  ever 
tried.  I  venture  to  say  that  nine  out  of  ten  guests  at 
every  hotel  abuse  the  coffee.  .  .  .  Every  morning 
at  6 :  30  there  is  a  rap  on  my  door.  I  look  out,  and  find 
a  Hindu  servant  with  tea.  I  tell  him  I  do  not  want 
tea,  but  would  appreciate  hot  water  for  shaving.  This 
the  Hindu  cannot  understand,  so  I  now  take  the  tea, 
and  shave  with  it.  .  .  .  I  was  on  the  "Anchises" 
so  long  that  I  almost  used  up  a  cake  of  shaving-soap. 
I  wonder  I  didn't  get  the  scurvy ;  they  say  that  is  the 
scourge  of  a  long  sea  voyage. 


TUESDAY,  MARCH  4. — This  day  opened  with  genuine 
inauguration  weather;  the  storm  of  yesterday  con- 
tinued all  night,  and  seemed  as  fierce  as  ever  at  8  A.  M. 
.  The  Natal  Mercury  of  this  morning  devoted 
a  full  page  to  the  inauguration  of  Woodrow  Wilson,  as 
president.  It  also  printed  an  editorial  of  a  column  and 
a  quarter  entitled,  "The  Future  of  America,"  which 
was  funny  because  of  absurd  statements.  "Rural 
America,"  the  editorial  says,  "knows  little  of  decent 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          221 

roads,  well-organized  police,  or  mail  facilities,  and  con- 
sists largely  of  wide-spreading  areas  that  do  not  con- 
tain one  human  being  to  the  square  mile."  ...  If 
newspapers  print  such  statements  about  America,  is  it 
any  wonder  that  the  English  people  have  absurd  no- 
tions of  the  Americans?  The  editorial  views  with 
alarm  the  race  problem  in  America ;  it  also  fears  that 
the  American  people  are  today  where  the  Romans  were 
just  before  the  decline  began.  .  .  .  The  Natal  Mer- 
cury contains  sixteen  eight-column  pages,  and  is  a  more 
creditable  newspaper  than  will  be  found  in  the  average 
American  town  of  32,000  population.  Durban  has 
66,000,  but  34,000  are  negroes  who  do  not  read  or 
speak  English.  Nine  pages  of  the  Mercury's  issue  of 
this  morning  are  devoted  to  advertising;  the  people 
of  all  the  British  colonies  seem  to  be  well  trained  in 
newspaper  advertising.  Although  the  Mercury  prints 
eight  columns  about  the  inauguration  of  America's 
new  president  (most  of  it  absurd,  but  probably  not 
more  absurd  than  would  be  my  comments  on  a  similar 
event  in  Africa),  it  says  nothing  about  the  "Anchises" 
breaking  from  its  moorings  during  yesterday's  storm, 
or  of  its  detention  in  the  harbor.  The  local  news  is 
badly  handled  in  all  the  papers  I  see  over  here;  the 
people  do  not  seem  to  care  for  local  news,  so  long  as 
they  get  telegrams  from  England.  .  .  .  Durban 
people  are  just  now  excited  because  His  Majesty's  Ship 
"New  Zealand"  will  arrive  in  a  day  or  two.  This  is 
the  battleship  of  dreadnought  type  which  was  built 
with  New  Zealand  money,  and  presented  to  the  Eng- 
lish government.  Canada  will  give  three  battleships 
to  the  English,  and  Australia  three.  All  the  other 


222  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

English  colonies  have  been  called  upon  to  show  their 
love  for  the  mother  country  in  a  similar  way ;  and  this 
really  amounts  to  an  order.  India,  Ceylon,  Africa,  and 
all  the  other  countries  controlled  by  Great  Britain, 
must  assist  the  English  in  keeping  ahead  of  Germany 
in  the  race  for  naval  supremacy.  It  seems  an  absurd 
situation  to  me,  but  possibly  I  know  as  little  about  it 
as  the  editorial  writer  on  the  Natal  Mercury  knows 
about  America.  (NOTE. — Since  the  above  was  writ- 
ten, Canada  has  balked,  and  refused  to  vote  money 
for  English  battleships.)  .  .  .  Some  writers  say 
that  Africa  is  the  Coming  Country;  that  thousands 
of  years  hence,  when  Europe  and  America  have  become 
as  dry  as  India  or  the  Sahara  desert,  Africa  will  be 
about  right,  and  contain  cities  like  New  York  and  Lon- 
don. By  that  time,  New  York  and  London  will  have 
been  deserted,  as  old  Memphis,  Thebes  and  Babylon 
are  now  deserted.  This  is  said  to  be  the  history  of  the 
world:  Countries  wear  out  like  men;  the  country 
around  the  Red  Sea  was  once  fertile  and  populous, 
but  is  now  a  desert,  owing  to  slowly  changing  climatic 
conditions;  the  world  is  so  old  that  mountain  ranges 
have  been  worn  level  with  the  surrounding  plains  by 
the  wind,  rain,  heat  and  cold  of  many  centuries.  This 
is  what  will  finally  happen  to  our  Rocky  Mountains. 
The  country  where  we  live  was  once  tropical,  and  it 
will  become  tropical  again,  in  the  course  of  time.  The 
one  thing  we  do  not  realize  is  the  great  age  of  the  world, 
having  long  been  taught  that  it  is  ten  or  twelve  thou- 
sand years  old.  It  is  more  than  ten  or  twelve  million 
years  old;  some  geologists  say  its  age  is  certainly 
forty  or  fifty  million  years.  .  .  .  My  father  left 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          223 

Indiana  because  he  believed  fever  and  ague  would 
always  be  a  pest.  Indiana  is  now  one  of  our  finest 
states.  Africa  is  getting  rid  of  the  sleeping  sickness, 
of  the  mysterious  fly  which  causes  death,  of  fever  and 
ague,  and  of  other  menaces  to  health ;  it  is  said  that 
South  Africa  has  shown  a  greater  development  in  the 
past  twenty  years  than  any  other  country  has  ever 
shown  in  a  similar  length  of  time.  Johannesburg  is  as 
fine  a  town  as  Kansas  City,  and  almost  as  large.  Dur- 
ban is  a  wonder,  and  Capetown  claims  to  be  a  health 
resort.  This  in  South  Africa  only,  whereas  the  real 
growth  in  the  future,  many  believe,  will  come  from 
East  Africa.  .  .  .  The  mythical  "Cape  to  Cairo" 
railway  extends  from  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  in  South 
Africa,  to  Cairo,  in  North  Africa,  or  Egypt.  Cape- 
town has  built  a  railroad  far  into  the  interior,  north- 
ward, and  Cairo  has  built  far  into  the  interior,  south- 
ward ;  some  day  it  will  be  possible  for  travelers  to  go 
from  Capetown  to  Cairo  by  rail.  I  am  going  from 
Capetown  to  Cairo,  but,  the  "Cape  to  Cairo"  line 
still  being  a  dream,  I  shall  go  to  Victoria  Falls  by  rail, 
and  thence  to  Beira,  where  I  will  take  a  German  ship 
for  a  long  journey  to  Port  Said,  the  Mediterranean  en- 
trance to  the  Suez  Canal,  and  only  a  few  miles  from 
Cairo.  ...  I  have  been  compelled  to  quit  eating 
roasting-ears  American  fashion  at  the  Marine  Hotel 
in  Durban.  The  Hindu  waiters  stood  around  and 
watched  me  in  surprise,  and  other  guests  were  also 
greatly  interested.  Finally  a  strange  man  appeared 
at  the  entrance,  and  seemed  to  be  studying  the  lights 
with  a  view  of  getting  a  moving  picture  of  the  perform- 
ance; so  I  now  have  my  corn  cut  off  the  cob,  which 


224  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

is  the  universal  practice  here.  .  .  .  The  "An- 
chises"  will  not  get  away  for  Capetown  and  London 
until  noon  on  Thursday.  The  chief  engineer  and  doc- 
tor dined  at  our  hotel  tonight,  with  two  of  the  lady 
passengers,  and  they  told  us  that  when  the  ship  left 
Adelaide,  it  was  followed  by  a  pigeon,  which  was  no 
doubt  attracted  by  the  grains  of  wheat  on  deck.  The 
first  night  out,  the  pigeon  probably  rested  in  the  rig- 
ging ;  anyway  it  was  flying  about  the  ship  the  second 
morning.  Then  it  was  too  late  to  go  back,  and  the 
bird  has  been  adopted  by  the  crew.  It  flies  about  the 
ship  while  at  sea,  but  soon  returns  to  the  deck  or  rig- 
ging. It  has  become  quite  tame,  and  will  take  food 
from  anyone,  and  grumble  for  more,  as  pet  pigeons  do. 
The  sailors  thought  the  bird  would  leave  them  at  Dur- 
ban, but  it  didn't  make  up  with  the  other  pigeons  that 
called  to  see  it,  and  will  probably  accompany  the  "An- 
chises"  to  Liverpool.  .  .  .  Mr.  Riley  slept  on 
board  last  night,  as  he  is  in  love  with  a  married  woman 
who  detests  him.  His  ticket  read  to  Durban  only, 
but  he  will  probably  attempt  to  go  on  to  Capetown, 
in  order  that  he  may  further  enjoy  drunkenness,  love, 
and  the  Sports  Committee. 


WEDNESDAY,  MARCH  5. — Rain  has  fallen  three  days 
in  succession.  Until  Monday  last,  there  had  been  a 
drouth  so  long  and  severe  that  the  mealie  crop  is  said 
to  be  ruined.  Mealie  is  the  name  given  corn  here; 
wheat  is  called  corn.  The  farmers  in  South  Africa  grow 
two  crops  of  corn  per  year,  and  export  a  great  deal  to 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          225 

London.  I  saw  the  statement  in  print  recently  that 
the  Argentine  Republic,  in  South  America,  exports 
more  corn  than  the  United  States.  We  raise  much 
more  corn  than  Argentine,  but  use  most  of  it,  whereas 
Argentine  uses  very  little.  .  .  .  This  afternoon, 
in  spite  of  the  rain,  we  visited  a  steam  whaling-ship 
lying  in  the  harbor.  Twenty  similar  vessels  make 
headquarters  in  Durban,  and  the  whales  caught  are 
converted  into  oil  in  six  factories  located  on  the  sea- 
shore, at  a  point  so  distant  that  the  smell  is  not  ob- 
jectionable to  the  town-people.  All  whales  caught  are 
brought  into  Durban  harbor ;  then  loaded  on  flat  cars, 
and  sent  down  to  the  factories.  ...  In  1911,  the 
luckiest  boat  in  the  Durban  whaling-fleet  caught  two 
hundred  whales ;  in  1912,  the  lucky  boat  caught  only 
one  hundred.  The  boat  with  the  least  luck  caught 
only  sixty  in  1912,  as  whales  are  becoming  scarcer. 
Last  month,  the  boat  I  visited  caught  only  one  whale  ; 
the  month  before  eight — three  of  the  eight  were  caught 
in  one  day.  In  certain  whaling-grounds  off  the  coast 
of  South  America,  fourteen  whales  have  been  caught 
in  one  day  by  one  ship.  A  fifty-six  foot  sperm  whale 
is  said  to  be  worth  $1,750.  The  stock  of  the  local 
whaling-companies  is  quoted  every  day  by  the  Durban 
papers,  and  the  best  of  them  pay  big  dividends.  .  .  . 
The  whaler  I  visited  is  a  seventy-ton  affair,  a  small  ship 
compared  with  the  10,000  tons  of  the  "Anchises." 
The  captain  of  the  whaler  showed  us  about,  and  he 
looked  like  a  carpenter  or  other  mechanic  who  calls  at 
your  house  to  do  a  job  of  work.  But  he  is  compelled 
to  understand  navigation  as  well  as  the  captain  of  a 
liner,  and  pass  the  same  examination.  He  brought  the 


226  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

ship  from  England,  a  voyage  of  fifty-nine  days.  Its 
engines  can  make  only  about  ten  miles  an  hour,  and 
its  boilers  require  only  eight  tons  of  coal  per  twenty- 
four  hours.  There  is  a  crew  of  ten  men,  including  mate, 
engineer,  gunner,  and  cook.  In  these  ships,  whales 
are  not  chased  in  small  boats ;  when  a  whale  is  sighted, 
it  is  pursued  by  the  ship,  under  full  steam.  At  a  dis- 
tance of  fifty  or  a  hundred  yards,  a  harpoon  is  fired 
into  the  whale  from  a  good-sized  cannon.  There  is  a 
time  fuse  attached  to  the  harpoon,  and  this  explodes 
a  bomb  which  should  kill  the  whale.  A  chain  is  then 
attached  to  its  tail,  and  the  carcass  is  towed  to  the 
rendering  works  in  Durban.  When  a  harpoon  is  fas- 
tened in  a  whale,  and  the  bomb  does  not  explode  prop- 
erly, it  sometimes  makes  a  run,  and  pulls  the  ship  as 
easily  as  it  might  pull  a  row-boat.  In  such  a  case,  an- 
other harpoon  is  fired  into  it  as  soon  as  opportunity 
offers.  Frequently  the  whale  breaks  the  great  rope 
which  attaches  the  harpoon  to  the  ship.  The  reader 
will  probably  understand  that  a  two-inch  rope  is  at- 
tached to  the  harpoon  fired  from  the  cannon,  and  if  the 
harpoon  hits  fairly,  the  whale  is  hooked  and  handled 
as  a  fisherman  handles  a  small  fish  with  a  light  line. 
If  the  whale  runs  away,  the  rope  is  let  out  slowly,  being 
kept  just  taut  enough  to  prevent  breaking.  If  the 
whale  rushes  toward  the  ship  the  rope  is  hauled  in 
rapidly,  with  a  steam  winch,  as  a  fisherman  reels  in 
his  line.  If  the  bomb  explodes  inside  the  whale,  as 
intended,  it  is  usually  killed  at  once,  but  this  does  not 
always  happen,  and  then  a  fight  is  necessary.  At 
Durban,  the  whaling-ships  usually  go  out  at  4  o'clock 
every  morning,  and  return  after  nightfall.  The  cap- 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          227 

tain  is  also  the  pilot,  and  he  took  me  up  on  the  bridge. 
I  have  never  before  been  on  the  bridge  of  a  ship ;  on 
a  liner,  it  is  a  violation  of  law  for  a  passenger  to  go  on 
the  bridge.  The  captain  also  took  me  down  to  his 
cabin,  which  is  reached  by  a  ladder.  The  mate,  en- 
gineer and  gunner  occupy  the  cabin  with  him,  and  it  is 
the  darkest  and  worst  ventilated  place  I  have  ever 
visited.  Two  of  the  beds  are  simply  holes-in-the-wall, 
and  the  rooms  of  the  gunner  and  mate  are  the  funniest 
holes  ever  occupied  by  men.  The  ladder  leading  to 
the  officers'  quarters  was  so  steep  and  slippery  that 
Adelaide  was  afraid  to  attempt  to  go  down.  The  cap- 
tain invited  me  to  go  out  with  him  next  Friday,  and  I 
accepted ;  but  when  the  time  comes,  I  suppose  I  will 
back  out.  He  says  he  often  has  visitors,  and  that  a 
good  many  of  them  have  seen  whales  caught.  In  the 
best  season  for  whaling,  a  whale  is  caught  every  day, 
and  always  within  fifteen  or  twenty  miles  of  Durban. 
If  the  weather  is  stormy,  the  whaling-ships  do  not  go 
out,  as  nothing  can  be  done  in  rough  weather.  The 
captain,  who  is  a  Norwegian,  also  invited  us  to  stay  for 
dinner,  but  we  declined,  although  we  saw  the  dinner  on 
the  table.  It  consisted  of  boiled  beef  and  potatoes, 
bread  and  butter,  dried-apple  sauce,  and  tea.  .  .  . 
On  the  way  to  visit  the  whaling-ship  we  passed  the 
Durban  court-house.  It  was  surrounded  by  negroes. 
The  inferior  races  everywhere  have  a  passion  for  going 
to  law.  To  go  to  law  a  good  deal — to  have  confidence 
in  the  justice  dealt  out  by  lawyers  and  judges — is 
everywhere  a  sign  of  feeble  intelligence.  .  .  .  There 
are  only  90,000  whites  in  all  of  Natal,  and  300,000  na- 
tives. The  Hindus  number  about  180,000,  and  lately 


228  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

the  whites  are  refusing  them  license  to  do  business. 
If  they  are  willing  to  work  as  laborers,  for  low  wages, 
well  and  good,  but  if  they  attempt  to  engage  in  busi- 
ness for  themselves,  they  are  to  be  told  that  business 
is  for  Europeans  only.  .  .  .  The  present  storm  is 
the  worst  in  two  years.  This  afternoon  I  went  past 
the  harbor,  and  saw  great  waves  dashing  over  the  sea- 
wall and  lighthouse.  I  also  saw  four  ships  lying  out- 
side, waiting  to  get  in,  and  a  number  inside  waiting  to 
get  out.  No  ship  has  passed  in  or  out  of  Durban  har- 
bor since  the  arrival  of  the  Atchison  hoodoo,  and  forty 
bath-houses  at  the  beach  were  demolished  by  the  waves 
Tuesday  morning.  .  .  A  man  who  has  lived  here 
fifty-four  years  tells  me  that  while  this  section  is  very 
good  for  agriculture,  lung  fever  carries  off  so  many 
cattle  and  horses  as  to  seriously  threaten  the  stock- 
raising  industry.  .  .  .  When  a  native  African 
woman  marries,  she  mixes  clay  with  her  wool,  and 
makes  a  circular  dome  out  of  it  which  looks  like  a 
stove-pipe  hat  tilted  on  the  back  of  the  head.  This 
head-dress  forces  the  woman  to  sleep  on  a  wooden  pil- 
low, as  the  Japanese  women  do,  since  the  hair  when 
once  put  up  is  not  taken  down  for  months.  .  .  . 
The  Natal  Mercury,  a  Durban  paper  I  buy  every  morn- 
ing, contained  the  following  amusing  telegram  in  its 
issue  for  today:  "London,  March  4. — Reuter's  corre- 
spondent in  Washington  telegraphs  that  Dr.  W.  Wil- 
son has  arrived  there,  preparatory  to  his  induction  into 
the  presidency.  Suffragists  have  been  debarred  from 
participating  in  the  presidential  procession.  Numbers 
of  the  demonstrators  paraded  yesterday,  and  women 
mounted  on  horseback  helped  the  police  to  clear  the 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          229 

route."  This  was  all  the  paper  contained  about  the 
inauguration,  although  issued  the  day  after  the  in- 
auguration took  place,  and  the  editor's  motto  is :  "The 
Natal  Mercury  prints  all  the  news  all  the  time."  All 
American  news  in  the  Australian,  New  Zealand  and 
South-African  papers  is  equally  brief  and  absurd. 
Little  wonder  that  the  English  and  Americans  do  not 
understand  each  other.  .  .  .  From  the  window  of 
my  room  at  the  hotel,  I  can  look  into  the  office  of  a  big 
wholesale  house  across  the  street.  Every  afternoon, 
the  bookkeepers  and  stenographers  may  be  seen  drink- 
ing tea.  A  cup  of  tea  at  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon 
is  a  universal  custom  here.  Sometimes  bread  and  but- 
ter or  cakes  are  served  with  it.  ...  Nearly  oppo- 
site our  hotel  is  an  apartment  house  where  a  great 
many  negro  servants  are  employed,  and  a  crowd  of 
them  may  usually  be  seen  in  front  of  the  servant's  en- 
trance. They  are  so  far  away  that  while  we  can  hear 
them  talk,  we  cannot  hear  what  they  say,  and  they  act 
so  much  like  our  negroes  that  they  seem  to  be  talking 
English,  although  they  are  not.  Negroes  have  been 
taken  to  almost  every  portion  of  the  earth,  and  speak 
nearly  all  languages.  In  some  of  the  islands  of  the 
West  Indies  they  speak  only  French,  having  never 
heard  anything  else.  In  English  colonies  they  speak 
English,  but  do  not  use  the  broad  R,  as  do  the  negroes 
in  our  Southern  states.  Probably  millions  of  them 
speak  Arabic.  Many  of  them  are  Mohammedans,  and 
many  of  them  speak  Hebrew.  But  wherever  you  see 
them,  they  have  the  same  good-natured,  care-free  way. 
In  Africa,  there  are  dozens  of  different  tribal  languages 
in  use  among  the  blacks,  but  in  foreign  countries  the 


230  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

young  negroes  soon  forget  their  mother-tongue.  Prob- 
ably among  all  the  millions  of  negroes  in  the  United 
States,  not  one  has  the  remotest  knowledge  of  the  orig- 
inal language  of  his  ancestors.  The  Hindus,  Chinese, 
Japanese  and  Hebrews  always  retain  their  own  lan- 
guage and  religion,  in  whatever  part  of  the  world  they 
may  live,  but  the  negroes  soon  adopt  the  language  of 
the  people  with  whom  their  lot  is  cast,  and  become 
Methodists,  Mohammedans,  Catholics  or  Hebrews  in 
religion  with  equal  facility. 


THURSDAY,  MARCH  6. — Yesterday  it  was  said  the 
storm  was  the  worst  in  two  years ;  today  it  is  said  to  be 
the  worst  in  ten  years.  In  spite  of  the  pouring  rain, 
we  hired  covered  rickshas  this  morning  and  went  out 
to  the  beach,  where  we  found  the  angry  waves  destroy- 
ing the  beautiful  place.  The  storm  had  attracted  an 
enormous  crowd,  the  people  coming  by  street  railway, 
and  all  of  them  were  soaked,  while  we  were  dry  and 
warm  in  our  covered  rickshas,  with  oilcloth  aprons  in 
front.  The  restaurants,  curio  shops,  moving-picture 
shows,  etc.,  were  under  water,  and  some  of  them  were 
being  torn  to  pieces.  Every  little  while  a  string  of 
bath-houses  went  into  the  sea.  The  great  board  walk 
along  the  beach  was  smashed  into  kindling-wood,  and 
holes  were  dug  in  the  asphalt  street  in  front  of  it.  Great 
boulders  from  the  breakwater  were  rolled  up  on  the 
beach,  and  deposited  on  the  floors  of  the  restaurants. 
Coolies  were  running  about  in  droves,  trying  to  lash 
down  some  of  the  smaller  buildings,  under  the  direction 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          231 

of  white  men,  but  the  coolies  were  afraid,  and  the  mad 
excitement  everywhere  reminded  me  of  the  lack  of 
order  at  a  fire.  Not  far  offshore,  the  big  White  Star 
ship  "Medic"  was  anchored,  unable  to  get  into  the 
harbor.  This  ship  left  Australia  a  few  days  after  we 
did,  and  we  know  some  of  the  passengers.  We  could 
plainly  see  the  ship  pitch  and  roll,  and  swing  'round  its 
anchor.  Further  down  were  a  number  of  other  ships 
unable  to  land  their  passengers,  and  to  the  right,  in- 
side the  harbor,  we  could  see  the  blue  funnels  of  the 
"Anchises."  And  all  this  loss,  disturbance  and  incon- 
venience to  thousands  simply  to  keep  the  Atchison 
hoodoo  indoors  four  days  in  succession.  .  .  .  We 
watched  the  angry  sea  for  an  hour,  the  water  occasion- 
ally washing  under  our  rickshas,  and  were  so  dry  and 
comfortable  in  spite  of  the  rain  that  we  determined  to 
visit  the  Hindu  market,  down-town.  The  Hindu  popu- 
lation of  Durban  is  greater  than  the  total  population 
of  Atchison,  and  certain  sections  of  the  city  are  de- 
voted to  them.  There  are  certainly  twice  as  many 
Hindu  stores  in  Durban  as  there  are  stores  of  all  kinds 
in  Atchison.  We  saw  large  wholesale  establishments 
owned  and  operated  by  Hindus,  and  devoted  entirely 
to  Hindu  trade.  There  were  dozens  of  jewelers'  shops, 
where  were  displayed  beautiful  things  made  of  gold, 
silver,  ivory,  brass,  etc.,  and  in  all  of  these  shops  we 
saw  Indian  artisans  at  work.  They  squat  in  front  of  a 
pot  of  charcoal,  and  manufacture  beautiful  ornaments 
with  tools  of  the  most  primitive  kind.  Hindu  women 
wear  beautiful  jewelry ;  everything  an  Indian  woman 
owns  she  wears  in  her  nose,  on  her  wrists,  in  her  ears, 
and  on  her  ankles,  in  the  form  of  exquisitely  made 


232  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

jewelry  of  gold  and  silver.  One  woman  we  saw  had 
a  silver  bracelet  on  each  wrist,  and  the  bracelets  were 
certainly  four  inches  wide.  On  the  front  porches  of  the 
poorest  houses  sat  workers  in  gold  and  silver,  and  all 
of  them  were  very  skillful.  When  there  was  a  brief 
let-up  in  the  ram,  we  left  the  rickshas,  and  entered  these 
interesting  workshops  and  stores.  .  .  .  Then  we 
went  to  the  Hindu  market  where  vegetables,  fruits, 
meat,  etc.,  are  sold.  The  market  is  an  enormous  place, 
occupying  the  greater  part  of  a  block.  In  addition 
to  food,  jewelry  and  fancy  goods  are  also  sold  at  this 
market,  and  we  saw  one  stall  devoted  to  the  sale  of 
Hindu  books;  copies  of  the  Indian  paper  printed  in 
Durban  were  also  displayed.  We  were  the  only  whites 
in  the  place ;  all  the  others  hi  the  crowd  were  natives 
of  India.  The  vegetables  were  small,  and  many  of  the 
fruits  we  did  not  recognize.  The  stall-keepers  knew 
we  were  visitors,  and  not  buyers,  and  were  very  polite. 
.  .  .  Adjoining  the  Hindu  market,  and  almost  as 
large,  was  the  native  or  negro  market.  Two-thirds  of 
this  place  was  devoted  to  an  enormous  negro  restau- 
rant. The  negroes  did  not  seem  to  have  much  for  sale, 
except  rice  and  curry,  and  this  was  sold  in  the  restau- 
rant, at  so  much  per  bowl.  I  am  certain  I  saw  four 
or  five  hundred  men  eating  in  this  native  restaurant ; 
and  how  they  talked  and  laughed!  We  frequently 
stopped  and  listened  to  the  roar,  which  reminded  us 
of  a  women's  reception,  magnified  twenty  or  thirty 
times.  The  white  market-master  told  me  that  the 
blacks  had  acquired  the  habit  of  buying  their  supplies 
of  the  Hindus,  and  that  the  Hindus  next  door  occasion- 
ally repaid  the  favor  by  buying  meals  in  the  negro 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          233 

restaurant.  But  I  saw  no  negroes  in  the  Indian  mar- 
ket, and  no  Indians  in  the  negro  restaurant.  The 
Hindus  were  very  quiet,  serious  and  busy,  but  the  ne- 
groes were  very  idle  and  noisy.  The  native  or  negro 
market  made  me  think  of  a  negro  church  festival.  In 
the  negro  market  we  saw  thirty  native  doctors.  These 
men  sold  roots  and  herbs  said  to  be  good  for  various 
ailments;  with  every  purchase,  they  gave  medical 
advice  free.  The  thirty  doctors  sat  together,  squatted 
on  the  floor  in  front  of  the  roots  and  herbs  they  were 
offering,  and  seemed  more  intelligent  than  those  around 
them.  ...  In  the  Indian  market,  the  thing  that 
attracted  my  particular  attention  was  that  sheep  heads 
were  displayed  at  all  the  meat  stalls,  and  every  head 
was  bloody  and  dirty,  just  as  it  came  from  the  butcher's 
hands.  Sheep  feet,  equally  dirty,  were  also  displayed. 
In  India  the  traveler  sees  a  great  many  shops  devoted 
to  the  sale  of  cheap  candy,  cut  in  square,  triangular 
and  round  pieces.  All  of  it  is  highly  colored;  pink, 
green,  blue,  brown,  etc.,  and  seems  to  be  of  the  nature 
of  our  "fudge."  The  same  shops  are  seen  in  the  Hindu 
section  of  Durban,  as  the  Hindus  are  constantly  eating 
sweets;  this  is  their  dissipation,  instead  of  drinking 
intoxicants.  Nearly  everything  I  saw  of  unusual  in- 
terest in  India,  I  saw  repeated  in  the  Hindu  quarter  of 
Durban,  but  the  Hindus  here  seem  much  more  pros- 
perous than  the  same  class  in  India.  ...  I  speak 
of  all  the  Indians  in  Durban  as  Hindus,  but  as  a  mat- 
ter of  fact  many  of  them  are  Mohammedans;  my 
waiter  at  the  Marine  Hotel  is  a  Mohammedan,  but  my 
chamber-man  is  a  Hindu.  There  is  not  much  differ- 
ence between  them  racially,  but  the  Mohammedans 


234  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

always  seem  quicker  and  brighter.  .  .  .  We  also 
visited  a  Kaffir  brewery,  where  is  manufactured  the 
beer  of  which  Kaffirs  are  so  fond.  The  head-man  is  an 
Englishman,  and  Kaffir  beer  is  manufactured  under 
public  control,  to  prevent  the  blacks  drinking  the  white 
man's  fire-water.  .  .  .  While  visiting  the  Hindu 
stores,  we  noted  that  the  keepers  had  borrowed  one 
idea  from  the  whites :  they  had  signs  out  announcing 
"Specially  low  prices  for  a  few  days  only;"  "Great 
clearing-out  sale  now  in  progress,"  etc.  .  .  .  Durban 
has  an  excellent  system  of  street  railways,  and  the  sub- 
urban lines  do  an  express  business.  At  almost  every 
stop  the  motorman  gives  a  package  to  a  negro  servant 
who  seems  to  be  expecting  it,  and,  if  no  servant  ap- 
pears, the  conductor  carries  the  package  into  a  house. 
The  charge  is  two  cents  per  package.  If  you  buy 
tickets,  you  can  ride  on  the  Durban  street  cars  for  three 
cents  a  section;  some  long  street-car  rides  we  took 
cost  us  twelve  cents  each.  .  .  .  This  is  our  fifth 
day  in  Durban.  The  first  day  was  bright,  but  a  storm 
of  rain  and  wind  began  Sunday  night,  and  has  con- 
tinued ever  since.  As  I  write  this  in  my  room,  water 
is  dropping  from  the  ceiling;  probably  every  roof  in 
town  is  leaking.  I  have  just  placed  a  washbowl  on 
the  bed  to  keep  the  bed  dry  for  tonight;  hi  case  the 
rain  lets  up.  (P.  S. — Since  writing  the  above,  two 
white  maids  and  two  Indian  men  have  moved  me  into 
another  room.)  If  the  rain  would  only  cease,  we  should 
probably  find  South  Africa  very  much  more  interesting 
than  Australia  or  New  Zealand.  .  .  .  The  police- 
men of  Durban  are  negroes,  and  they  have  the  most 
serious  and  important  expressions  I  have  ever  seen  on 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          235 

the  faces  of  men.  And  a  serious,  important  expression 
on  the  face  of  a  barefoot  man  always  amuses  me.  Any- 
one with  grave  duties  to  perform  should,  it  seems  to 
me,  wear  shoes.  .  .  .  There  is  a  ricksha  stand  near 
the  hotel,  and  every  ricksha  man  carries  a  cow-bell, 
which  he  rings  while  on  the  road  to  warn  pedestrians 
to  get  out  of  the  way.  These  bells  tinkle  half  the  night, 
and  remind  me  of  a  pasture  wherein  every  cow  is  a 
bell-cow,  and  all  of  them  vigorously  fighting  flies. 
.  .  .  A  good  many  American  manufacturers  seem 
to  be  establishing  branches  hi  London.  I  bought  a 
bottle  of  Pond's  Extract  hi  Durban,  and  found  that  it 
was  manufactured  by  the  Pond's  Extract  Co.,  65  Great 
Russell  street,  London.  I  bought  a  set  of  auto-strop 
razor  blades,  and  found  that  they,  also,  came  from 
London.  Still,  at  the  stores  I  find  a  great  many  fa- 
miliar articles  with  only  good  old  U.  S.  A.  on  them. 
.  .  .  The  charge  here  for  an  ordinary  ricksha  ride 
is  six  cents.  If  I  am  compelled  to  go  up-town  on  an 
errand,  the  ricksha  man  waits,  and  when  I  return  to  the 
hotel,  I  pay  him  a  sixpence,  or  twelve  cents.  In 
coming  back  from  town  this  afternoon,  I  faced  a 
terrific  head-wind,  with  beating  rain,  and  the  ricksha 
man  was  almost  stalled.  But  the  price  was  only 
six  cents  each  way.  ...  I  cannot  recall  hav- 
ing seen  a  single  mulatto  in  this  town ;  all  the  negroes 
seem  to  be  of  pure  blood.  Whatever  else  may  be  said 
of  Englishmen,  they  seem  to  be  particular  in  their 
social  relations.  ...  At  seven  o'clock  this  even- 
ing, the  storm  was  worse  than  it  has  been  at  any  time 
since  Monday  morning.  The  evening  paper  says  the 
"Anchises"  got  away  at  4  o'clock  this  afternoon,  and 


236  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

at  this  writing  is  probably  doing  a  dance  off  the  coast 
that  the  passengers  will  remember  as  long  as  they  Jive. 
The  wind  has  been  blowing  a  gale  four  days,  and  the 
sea  must  be  a  thing  to  be  dreaded  by  this  time. 


FRIDAY,  MARCH  7. — The  destruction  being  wrought 
by  the  waves  at  the  beach  has  attracted  crowds  daily, 
but  a  good  many  did  not  get  to  see  it  until  this  morning, 
when  the  storm  had  considerably  abated.  Those  who 
went  to  the  beach  today  were  disappointed  because  no 
great  destruction  was  taking  place,  and  abused  the 
street  railway,  which  had  charged  them  three  cents  for 
the  ride  out.  I  predict  that  at  the  next  meeting  of  the 
town  council,  several  additional  measures  will  be  intro- 
duced to  Make  It  Hot  for  the  street  railway,  which  had 
no  great  show  to  offer  at  the  beach  this  morning.  Peo- 
ple have  already  forgotten  the  magnificent  sight  the 
company  offered  them  at  the  beach  on  Tuesday,  Wed- 
nesday and  Thursday,  for  a  charge  of  only  three  cents, 
including  the  ride  out.  I  rode  out  today  and  was  satis- 
fied; I  always  get  along  with  street  railways,  as  it 
seems  to  me  they  offer  a  good  service  at  a  very  low 
price.  .  .  .  The  captain  and  gunner  of  the  whal- 
ing-ship oft  which  I  agreed  to  make  a  trip  today,  called 
on  me  at  the  hotel,  and  said  it  would  be  impossible  to 
catch  a  whale  even  if  one  should  be  sighted,  owing  to 
rough  seas,  therefore  they  would  not  go  out.  I  took 
the  two  sailor-men  down  to  the  fine  smoking-room  of 
the  Marine  Hotel,  and  they  seemed  ill  at  ease  while 
smoking  the  cigars  and  drinking  the  beverages  I  pro- 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          237 

vided.  They  are  rough  men,  but  two  better  fellows 
I  have  not  met  during  the  trip.  I  don't  suppose  I 
ever  had  any  actual  intention  of  going  out  with  them, 
but  they  thought  I  had,  and  came  up  to  the  hotel  to 
tell  me  the  ship  could  not  go  out  today.  ...  I 
regret  to  notice  that  hi  the  papers  today  are  references 
to  three  attempted  assaults  on  white  women  by  ne- 
groes. A  Mr.  Maurice  Evans  lectured  in  Durban  last 
night  on  a  recent  visit  to  the  United  States,  and  we  in- 
tended going,  but  were  prevented  by  a  heavy  rain.  Mr. 
Evans  traveled  through  our  Southern  states,  and  made 
a  special  study  of  the  negro  question.  He  says  our 
failure  to  solve  the  race  problem  is  due  to  attempts  hi 
the  North  to  make  the  negro  an  equal,  whereas  the 
negro  is  not  the  equal  of  the  white  man,  and  cannot 
be  made  such.  Mr.  Evans  thinks  our  Southern  whites 
would  solve  the  race  problem  if  the  Northern  whites 
would  let  them  alone.  The  papers  quote  him  as  say- 
ing that  an  examination  of  a  thousand,  or  ten  thousand, 
average  negro  skulls  will  show  that  the  negro  is  de- 
ficient in  brain-power,  and  that  he  must  be  treated 
as  an  inferior ;  kindly  and  fairly,  but  always  as  an  in- 
ferior, and  subject  to  strict  regulations.  The  South- 
African  system  of  treating  the  negro  is  paternal;  he 
is  regarded  as  a  ward.  And  in  the  papers  of  a  few  days 
ago,  I  saw  a  statement  that  a  law  was  being  urged  which 
would  provide  a  heavy  fine  for  any  white  man  who 
leased  land  to  a  negro,  or  gave  him  possession  of  land 
in  any  other  way ;  by  gift,  purchase,  lease,  or  renting 
arrangement.  Wherever  you  find  whites  and  blacks 
living  in  the  same  community,  there  is  a  race  problem. 
One  of  the  papers  of  this  date,  speaking  of  Mr.  Evans's 


238  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

lecture,  says:  "It  is  impossible  not  to  be  struck  with 
the  sadness  and  feeling  of  something  approaching  de- 
spair which  seem  to  have  been  the  chief  impressions 
left  on  Mr.  Evans  by  his  experiences  in  the  southern 
portion  of  the  United  States."  ...  In  South 
Africa  a  dentist  does  not  call  himself  a  "doctor."  I 
saw  this  sign  today :  "Mr.  Alfred  Geary,  surgeon  den- 
tist." ...  I  don't  suppose  any  white  family  in 
South  Africa  is  so  poor  that  it  cannot  afford  a  negro 
servant.  Negro  men  are  almost  universally  employed 
as  house  servants,  and  not  negro  women.  Many  boys 
are  employed  to  take  care  of  children.  Most  of  the 
negroes  who  come  to  Durban  from  the  interior  have  two 
or  more  wives.  These  they  leave  at  home,  to  work  in 
the  fields.  The  English  residents  say  it  is  best  not  to 
teach  the  negro  servants  the  English  language;  that 
a  better  plan  is  for  employers  to  learn  Kaffir.  An 
English-speaking  negro  servant  demands  more  wages 
than  one  who  speaks  only  Kaffir,  and  usually  drifts 
to  Johannesburg,  the  boom  town  of  the  Transvaal. 
A  capable,  all-around  man  servant  gets  $2  a  week,  and 
he  is  able  to  cook  well,  and  do  all  sorts  of  housework. 
The  servants  become  fond  of  their  employers,  and  fre- 
quently remain  with  them  for  years.  The  negroes  are 
said  to  be  more  honest  than  the  Hindus  ;  all  the  whites 
I  have  talked  with  have  referred  to  the  Hindus  as 
thieves.  But  any  visitor  may  see  that  the  Indians  are 
a  more  important  class  than  the  negroes.  The  Indians 
own  many  big  business  houses,  and  at  the  Hindu  mar- 
ket I  saw  great  quantities  of  fruits  and  vegetables; 
but  almost  nothing  in  the  negro  market,  next  door, 
except  tobacco,  which  the  negroes  raise  because  they 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          239 

are  fond  of  it.  Although  the  English  say  one  Kaffir  is 
worth  ten  Indians,  they  admit  that  Indians  are  em- 
ployed almost  exclusively  on  the  big  sugar  and  tea 
plantations,  where  the  workmen  must  be  painstaking 
and  reliable.  My  impression  is  that  the  whites  are  a 
little  jealous  of  the  Indians,  and  find  the  negroes  more 
easily  controlled.  .  .  .  Early  this  morning  the 
skies  brightened,  and  we  expected  a  return  of  pleasant 
weather,  but  while  we  were  at  breakfast,  the  down- 
pour of  rain  began  for  the  fifth  successive  day.  Since 
Sunday  night  the  rainfall  has  amounted  to  nearly  seven- 
teen inches.  .  .  .  Natal,  of  which  Durban  is  the 
largest  town,  is  one  of  the  states  of  the  South-African 
federation.  It  is  not  so  large  as  Kansas,  being  350 
miles  one  way,  and  150  the  other.  Natal  has  1,200 
miles  of  railway,  and  corn,  which  is  the  easiest  grown 
of  all  the  cereals,  is  the  staple  crop.  Sugar-cane,  tea, 
alfalfa,  ostriches,  sheep,  turkeys,  nearly  all  the 
tropical  fruits,  and  hogs,  cattle  and  horses,  are  also 
produced.  The  planting  season  for  corn  lasts  three 
months,  instead  of  about  eighteen  days,  as  with  us. 
The  rainfall  is  42  inches  per  year.  The  bulk  of  the 
farms  are  of  200  to  1,000  acres,  and  many  stock  farms 
are  much  larger.  Land  in  Natal  is  worth  from  four 
dollars  an  acre  up.  Natal  farm  laborers  receive  $4 
a  month,  and  Indians  about  the  same.  It  is  expected 
that  hail  will  destroy  everything  in  the  way  of  crops 
every  fourth  or  fifth  year.  It  is  asserted  that  the 
European  death-rate  in  Durban  in  1910  was  less  than 
seven  per  thousand,  as  compared  with  a  death-rate  of 
fourteen  per  thousand  in  England  and  Wales  in  1908. 
.  .  .  The  Dutch  settled  in  the  vicinity  of  Capetown 


240  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

in  1652,  but  the  English  claimed  they  ran  up  the  British 
flag  on  the  site  of  that  town  in  1620.  There  has  always 
been  friction  between  the  Dutch  (or  Boers)  and  Eng- 
lish. This  culminated  in  the  war  of  1899-1902,  which 
cost  the  English  25,000  lives  and  a  billion  and  a  quar- 
ter dollars.  The  Boers  had  possibly  40,000  soldiers  in 
the  field,  while  the  English  had  near  a  quarter  of  a  mill- 
ion. The  Boers  were  hardy  pioneers,  and  the  fight 
they  put  up  is  still  regarded  as  one  of  the  wonders  of 
the  world.  Only  the  Transvaal,  and  later  the  Orange 
Free  State,  fought  the  English  during  the  Boer  war; 
Natal  and  Cape  Colony  were  loyal  to  the  British. 
.  .  .  The  English  have  also  been  compelled  to  fight 
the  Zulus  for  possession  of  South  Africa.  The  present 
peace  with  the  Boers  and  natives  will  probably  prove 
lasting,  although  I  occasionally  hear  predictions  to  the 
contrary.  ...  Six  years  before  Columbus  dis- 
covered America,  a  bold  adventurer  named  Diaz 
rounded  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  but  means  of  commu- 
nication were  slow  in  those  days,  and  Diaz's  discovery 
of  a  water  route  to  India  was  not  known  until  several 
years  after  the  death  and  disgrace  of  Columbus.  .  .  . 
All  South  Africa  is  now  in  an  amicable  federation,  ex- 
cept Rhodesia,  and  this  will  probably  come  in  before 
many  years.  Other  parts  of  Africa  are  controlled  by 
the  Germans,  the  British,  the  Belgians,  the  French,  the 
Italians,  the  Portuguese,  etc.  Africa  is  an  enormous 
country ;  almost  as  large  as  all  of  North  America,  and, 
in  its  remotest  sections,  civilization  is  getting  a  hold. 
More  pioneering  is  being  done  in  Africa  today  than  in 
any  other  country,  and,  for  many  years  to  come,  Africa 
will  occupy  a  prominent  place  in  the  world's  news. 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          241 

.  .  .  I  can  remember  very  distinctly  when  Stanley 
"discovered"  Dr.  Livingstone  in  the  country  I  shall 
visit  shortly  in  comfortable  railway  trams,  and  the 
railway  has  now  been  built  four  hundred  miles  beyond 
Victoria  Falls.  Stanley's  first  expedition  into  Africa 
was  a  newspaper  sensation,  financed  by  the  New  York 
Herald,  as  Dr.  Livingstone  was  not  lost,  and,  when 
Stanley  "found"  him,  was  engaged  quietly  in  making 
maps  of  the  interior. 


SATURDAY,  MARCH  8. — We  spent  this  day  traveling 
from  Durban  to  Johannesburg.  The  distance  is  four 
hundred  and  eighty-three  miles,  and  we  were  twenty- 
four  hours  and  a  half  on  the  way,  as  we  left  Durban  at 
5 :  50  last  night,  and  arrived  here  at  6 :  20  this  evening. 
The  distance  from  New  York  to  Chicago  is  about  a 
thousand  miles,  and  the  best  trams  on  the  Pennsyl- 
vania and  New  York  Central  make  it  in  twenty  hours. 
Formerly  they  made  it  in  eighteen  hours,  but  the  speed 
was  so  great  that  travelers  complained.  The  train  on 
which  we  traveled  today  was  the  Limited,  and  as  good 
as  there  is  in  South  Africa.  The  track  is  narrow-gauge, 
and,  as  seems  the  rule  on  all  railroads  operated  by  the 
government,  the  tram  was  crowded,  though  we  had 
no  cause  to  complain ;  we  were  given  a  compartment 
to  ourselves,  without  extra  charge.  When  we  arrived 
at  the  station  last  night,  we  found  a  placard  on  the 
window  of  a  compartment,  announcing  that  it  was  re- 
served for  "Mr.  and  Miss  Howe."  The  compartment 
would  have  easily  seated  four.  It  was  provided  with 


242  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

a  washstand,  and  was  practically  as  good  as  a  compart- 
ment on  a  Pullman.  At  ten  o'clock,  a  white  porter 
appeared  with  two  bundles  of  bed-clothing,  sealed. 
Breaking  the  seals,  he  made  up  two  beds  about  as  they 
are  made  up  on  a  Pullman.  Then  the  porter  presented 
me  with  two  tickets,  for  which  I  paid  sixty  cents  each. 
The  tickets  read:  "South  African  Railways.  No. 
98029.  Bedding  ticket.  From  Durban  to  Johannes- 
burg. Date,  3-7-13.  Train  No.  192.  Amount  paid 
2.  6.  This  ticket  must  be  handed  to  passenger  on  pay- 
ment of  charge."  .  .  .  This  is  the  sleeping-car 
system  in  South  Africa ;  two  had  a  compartment  in  a 
sleeping-car  twenty-four  hours  and  a  half  for  $1.20. 
The  Pullman  charge  for  a  service  not  much  better 
would  have  been  $9,  instead  of  $1.20.  There  was  a 
dining-car  on  the  train,  and  the  charge  for  dinner  was 
75  cents,  and  for  lunch  and  breakfast,  sixty  cents  each. 
The  meals  were  good,  but  the  car  was  always  packed 
at  meal-times,  and  the  force  of  waiters  not  large  enough. 
Tea  was  served  in  our  compartment  at  7  A.  M.  and  4 
p.  M.  ...  I  have  never  enjoyed  a  railroad  ride 
more  than  I  enjoyed  the  ride  from  Durban  to  Johannes- 
burg. The  weather  was  cool,  and  there  was  no  dust. 
We  left  Durban  in  a  pouring  rain,  but  this  morning  the 
rain  ceased,  and  by  noon  the  sun  was  shining.  For 
hours  we  passed  through  a  prairie  country  which  greatly 
resembled  eastern  Kansas  as  it  was  forty  or  fifty  years 
ago.  I  saw  thousands  and  thousands  of  acres  of  what 
seemed  to  be  old-fashioned  prairie  grass,  and  when  there 
was  a  cultivated  field  it  was  nearly  always  devoted  to 
corn.  I  saw  a  good  deal  of  hay-making  in  progress, 
and  in  every  case  the  hay-rake  was  pulled  by  a  yoke  of 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          243 

oxen.  In  several  places,  negro  laborers  were  cutting 
oats,  and  the  harvester  was  also  pulled  by  oxen.  This 
was  the  rule  in  the  early  days  in  eastern  Kansas ;  many 
of  the  older  farmers  will  remember  when  oxen  were 
used  almost  entirely  for  farm  work.  If  I  were  dissatis- 
fied with  my  present  location  (which  I  am  not),  I  should 
have  no  hesitancy  in  locating  in  South  Africa  after 
seeing  that  part  of  it  lying  between  Durban  and  Johan- 
nesburg. The  country  looks  like  the  best  portions  of 
the  United  States,  and  not  one-tenth  of  it  seems  to  be 
cultivated.  We  saw  a  good  many  sheep,  but  not  one- 
hundredth  part  as  many  as  we  saw  in  Australia  and 
New  Zealand,  although  the  grass  was  much  better. 
Altogether,  the  impression  left  on  my  mind  was  this : 
A  surprisingly  good  country,  and  very  little  advantage 
taken  of  it.  .  .  .  I  doubt  if  I  saw  a  corn-field  of 
fifty  acres;  the  patches  were  all  small,  and  weedy. 
In  most  cases  the  stalks  of  the  field  corn  were  as  small 
as  the  stalks  of  our  sweet  corn.  The  farming  is  mostly 
done  by  negroes;  either  as  independent  farmers,  or 
as  farm  laborers.  If  some  of  the  corn  farmers  of 
Illinois,  Iowa,  Missouri  and  Kansas  had  this  land,  it 
would  produce  better  crops.  .  .  .  This  refers 
mainly  to  Natal.  The  rainfall  is  less  toward  Johannes- 
burg: I  thought  I  could  notice  a  difference  when  we 
crossed  into  the  Transvaal  a  little  before  noon  today. 
Toward  Johannesburg,  there  is  more  stock-raising; 
the  country  looks  much  like  Kansas  two  hundred  miles 
west  of  the  Missouri  river.  Still,  the  Transvaal  looks 
better  than  the  best  parts  of  Australia  I  saw.  But  in 
Australia,  the  very  best  is  made  of  everything,  while 
here  shiftlessness  is  the  rule.  The  natives  (negroes) 


244  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

live  in  round,  grass-covered  huts,  and  are  a  shiftless 
lot.  If  other  portions  of  Africa  are  as  promising  agri- 
culturally as  Natal  and  the  Transvaal  (and  certain 
parts  are  said  to  be  better),  I  can  easily  believe  it  has 
a  great  future.  But  it  should  be  remembered  that 
this  is  the  rainy  season ;  in  a  few  months  the  country 
will  look  brown  and  parched.  There  is  plenty  of  rain 
along  the  coast,  but  in  the  interior,  people  long  for  rain 
as  they  do  in  Australia.  ...  At  one  place  along 
the  road,  we  saw  a  family  of  Kaffirs  going  to  town  in  a 
light  wagon  to  which  was  attached  three  yoke  of  oxen. 
Goats  and  donkeys,  the  live-stock  of  shiftless  men 
everywhere,  were  quite  numerous  along  the  way.  .  .  . 
Near  Durban  we  saw  young  corn  and  young  bananas 
growing  together.  A  half-dozen  miles  from  Durban  we 
saw  a  huge  sugar-mill,  and  surrounding  it  a  Hindu  vil- 
lage in  which  there  were  several  strange  temples  to 
strange  gods.  The  foundation  of  one  of  these  temples 
had  been  undermined  by  rain  lasting  six  days,  and  was 
toppling  over  in  the  mud.  ...  At  many  of  the 
stations  we  saw  American  agricultural  machinery  on 
freight  cars  or  on  station  platforms.  ...  At  one 
station  there  was  a  creamery  which  looked  much  like 
a  similar  establishment  in  the  United  States ;  at  most 
stations,  negro  boys  sold  milk  to  the  passengers  at  a 
penny  a  glass.  .  .  .  The  cattle  here  are  queer- 
looking  ;  they  are  shorter  than  ours,  and  usually  have 
enormous  horns.  I  saw  no  highly  bred  cattle,  but  the 
native  cattle  were  always  fat,  and  grazing  in  grass  up 
to  their  knees.  Some  of  the  oxen  come  from  Madagas- 
car, and  have  great  humps  on  their  backs.  Oxen  are 
as  generally  worked  on  farms  here  as  horses  are  at 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          245 

home;  frequently  cows  are  worked  with  them,  and 
when  a  cow  works  under  the  yoke,  her  calf  usually 
travels  beside  her.  In  the  middle  of  nearly  every 
string  of  work-oxen,  you  see  a  pair  of  yearlings  or  two- 
year-olds  being  worked  to  "break"  them.  Donkeys 
are  also  extensively  worked  here;  no  disease  attacks 
the  donkey,  whereas  cattle  often  die  as  do  our  hogs 
with  cholera,  and  I  frequently  saw  ten  to  twelve  don- 
keys working  to  one  wagon.  .  .  Soon  after  pass- 
ing into  the  Transvaal,  I  noticed  that  much  of  the 
prairie  land  seemed  somewhat  stony.  What  we  call 
"nigger-heads "  were  numerous ;  reddish-looking  stones 
worn  into  the  shape  of  circular  beehives,  by  long  ex- 
posure to  the  weather.  These  turned  out  to  be  ant- 
hills, so  hardened  by  long  exposure  to  the  weather  that 
they  will  turn  a  bullet ;  during  the  late  war,  the  Boers 
used  them  for  protection.  There  are  countless  billions 
and  trillions  of  ants  here,  and  you  are  never  out  of 
sight  of  their  hills  hi  the  Transvaal.  In  some  places 
the  ant-hills  are  so  large  that  the  natives  chase  out  the 
ants,  and  use  the  hills  for  houses.  .  .  .  The  fences 
in  the  prairie  country  are  always  of  wire,  and  the  posts 
of  iron,  and  sod  houses,  most  of  them  tumbling  down, 
are  as  common  as  they  were  in  western  Kansas  thirty 
years  ago.  .  .  .  The  Transvaal  is  that  section  to 
which  the  Boers  made  their  great  trek,  owing  to  friction 
with  the  English  along  the  coast.  In  the  Transvaal 
was  later  discovered  the  Johannesburg  gold  mines, 
and  it  was  the  owners  of  these  mines  who  brought 
on  the  Boer  war.  Should  Kansas  and  Nebraska 
go  to  war  with  England,  it  would  not  be  a  much 
more  remarkable  performance  than  the  Transvaal 


TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 


and  Orange  Free  State  fighting  England,  and  forc- 
ing it  to  put  a  quarter  of  a  million  men  in  the 
field.  Early  this  morning  we  passed  through  Lady- 
smith,  famous  because  of  the  long  siege,  and  through- 
out the  day  we  have  seen  occasional  relics  of  the  war ; 
mainly  cemeteries  wherein  were  buried  English  soldiers, 
and  we  also  saw  lone  monuments  erected  in  memory 
of  special  heroes.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  May,  the  fine  old 
people  we  saw  embark  on  the  "  Anchises"  at  Adelaide, 
and  whom  we  knew  on  the  long  voyage  to  Durban,  had 
a  son  killed  in  the  Boer  war,  as  Australia  and  New  Zea- 
land, as  well  as  Canada,  sent  troops  to  help  the  Eng- 
lish suppress  the  terrible  Boers.  We  had  heard  Mrs. 
May  say  her  son  was  buried  at  Sanderton,  and  we  passed 
through  that  town,  and  saw  the  cemetery  where  the 
young  soldier  was  buried.  .  .  .  The  country  be- 
tween Durban  and  Johannesburg  is  what  Americans 
call  rolling.  Small  mountains  are  occasionally  seen 
in  the  distance,  but  the  general  effect  is  like  our  prairie 
country.  At  one  place  we  crossed  a  divide  by  means 
of  a  switch-back,  and  two  engines  were  usually  attached 
to  our  train.  .  .  .  Two  hours  before  we  left  Dur- 
ban, we  saw  the  warship  "New  Zealand"  come  into 
the  harbor.  Immediately  on  landing,  sixty  of  the  offi- 
cers and  men  left  for  Johannesburg,  and  were  accommo- 
dated in  three  sleepers  and  a  dining-car  on  our  train. 
Hundreds  of  people  gathered  at  the  stations  to  see  the 
sailor-men,  and  Johannesburg  will  entertain  them  lav- 
ishly. ...  A  gentleman  told  me  today  of  a  farm 
in  South  Africa  which  is  eight  miles  square.  Plenty 
of  good  land  can  be  bought  here  at  $6  an  acre,  and  the 
English  government,  much  as  it  is  abused,  is  as  good 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          247 

as  any  in  the  world.  .  .  .  At  5  p.  M.  we  had  our 
first  glimpse  of  Johannesburg:  small  mountains  of 
white  rock  taken  out  of  the  different  mines,  and  which 
are  known  as  "the  Johannesburg  Alps."  We  stopped 
at  suburbs  and  switched  around  for  more  than  an  hour 
before  we  finally  left  the  train  at  the  greatest  gold- 
mining  camp  in  the  world,  at  6  :  20  P.  M. 


SUNDAY,  MARCH  9. — Johannesburg  was  a  pleasant 
surprise,  as  was  Durban ;  it  is  a  new,  clean  city  of  237,- 
000  inhabitants,  and  up-to-date  in  all  respects.  The 
population  is  about  equally  divided  between  whites 
and  blacks.  It  has  department  stores  as  big  as 
Kansas  City,  and  last  night  the  main  streets 
were  so  crowded  that  it  was  almost  impossible  to 
get  along.  Although  this  is  a  boom  town,  some- 
thing like  but  greater  than  our  Cripple  Creek, 
prices  are  not  unreasonable.  I  am  staying  at  the 
Langham  Hotel,  which  is  excellent  in  every  way. 
The  price  is  $3.60  per  day,  including  three  regular 
meals,  and  coffee  at  7  A.  M.  and  tea  at  4  p.  M.  An  or- 
chestra plays  in  the  dining-room  during  dinner.  The 
waiters  are  imposing-looking  Germans,  wearing  green 
coats,  brass  buttons,  and  knee-breeches.  Altogether 
it  is  as  satisfactory  a  hotel  as  we  have  encountered; 
and  we  were  very  fond  of  the  Marine  at  Durban,  and 
of  the  Grand  at  Wellington.  .  .  .  Johannesburg 
is  not  situated  in  the  mountains,  although  it  has  hills 
something  like  the  bluffs  along  the  Missouri  river. 
The  main  town  is  on  a  flat,  and  the  surrounding  hills 


248  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

add  an  agreeable  variety.  There  is  an  excellent  sys- 
tem of  street  railway,  and  the  price  is  three  cents  per 
section;  the  fare  to  the  zoological  garden  is  fifteen 
cents.  This  garden  shows  most  of  the  game  animals 
of  Africa,  in  addition  to  as  handsome  a  display  of 
flowers  as  one  cares  to  see.  A  peculiarity  of  the  flowers 
here  is  that  they  are  almost  without  scent.  While 
coming  in  from  the  zoo  this  morning,  the  conductor, 
when  taking  my  fare,  asked : 

"What  part  of  the  country  do  you  come  from?" 

I  told  him  from  the  United  States. 

"I  know  that,"  he  replied;  "but  what  section?  I 
am  from  Georgia." 

This  man  was  James  Brady,  who  served  in  the  Span- 
ish-American war,  and  came  over  here  to  serve  in  the 
Boer  war  in  a  spirit  of  adventure.  Strange  as  it  may 
seem,  many  men  like  soldiering,  and  the  risk  of  battle. 
One  can  hardly  refer  to  James  Brady  as  a  patriot ;  he 
was  simply  a  restless  young  fellow  who  wanted  excite- 
ment. .  .  .  Johannesburg's  principal  streets  are 
well  paved,  and  they  are  brilliantly  illuminated  at  night. 
I  believe  the  town  has  a  greater  number  of  handsome 
homes,  hi  proportion  to  population,  than  any  other 
city  I  am  familiar  with.  It  startles  an  American  to 
hear  that  another  country  has  the  "greatest  hi  the 
world"  hi  anything,  but  South  Africa  leads  the  world 
hi  gold  production  because  of  Johannesburg.  The  town 
is  only  thirty  years  old,  but  there  is  nothing  crude  about 
it.  Like  all  exceedingly  prosperous  towns,  its  women 
are  homely ;  in  this  respect,  it  reminds  one  of  Kansas 
City  and  Chicago.  The  handsomest  women  are  al- 
ways found  in  dull  towns  like  Quincy,  Illinois,  and  Bur- 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          249 

lington,  Iowa.  By-the-way,  "Burlington"  is  a  popu- 
lar word  in  the  English  colonies,  for  some  reason.  In 
Wellington  and  Sydney  there  are  handsome  restau- 
rants called  "The  Burlington;"  somewhere  else  I  saw 
a  big  arcade  of  the  same  name,  and  in  London  a  monthly 
magazine  is  called  "The  Burlington."  .  .  .  All 
printed  matter  in  the  Transvaal  intended  for  the  public, 
such  as  railway  time-tables,  is  printed  in  German  as 
well  as  in  English.  Which  is  not  surprising,  since  the 
Boers  outnumber  the  English  more  than  three  to  one. 
.  .  .  An  American  negro  would  scream  his  head  off 
in  Johannesburg.  The  negro  here  is  not  allowed  to 
ride  on  the  street  railways,  nor  is  he  allowed  on  the 
sidewalks.  A  system  of  Jim  Crow  cars  was  tried  when 
the  street  railways  were  first  built,  but  the  blacks 
wanted  to  ride  with  the  whites,  so  they  were  ordered  to 
keep  off  the  cars  altogether.  A  negro  servant  may  ride 
on  a  street  car  with  his  master,  but  he  must  sit  in  a  mod- 
est place  pointed  out  by  the  conductor.  A  negro  ser- 
vant may  live  in  quarters  in  his  master's  yard,  but  if 
he  has  a  family,  and  works  for  himself,  he  must  live 
in  Blacktown.  .  .  .  The  Boers  were  more  strict 
with  the  blacks  than  are  the  English.  On  Sundays, 
the  streets  are  black  with  natives,  as  there  are  more 
than  100,000  in  Johannesburg,  but  not  a  great  many 
are  seen  on  week  days ;  in  the  enormous  crowds  I  saw 
on  the  streets  last  night,  I  remarked  the  absence  of 
negroes.  .  .  .  The  white  men  here  usually  speak 
highly  of  the  honesty  of  the  blacks.  If  the  blacks  find  a 
dishonest  one,  they  promptly  report  him  to  the  "boss." 
.  .  .  A  thing  that  soon  attracts  your  attention  in 
Johannesburg  is  the  great  number  of  negroes  who  own 


250  TRAVEL  LETTERS  PROM 

bicycles.  Being  refused  admission  to  the  street  cars, 
they  buy  bicycles.  But  the  old  Boers  wouldn't  per- 
mit the  blacks  to  ride  bicycles.  .  .  .  Although  the 
natives  are  treated  so  harshly,  I  saw  the  statement  in 
print  lately  that  they  possess  more  than  one-third  of 
all  the  cattle  in  Cape  Colony,  one-fourth  of  the  sheep, 
produce  three-fifths  of  all  the  corn,  and  own  one-third 
of  all  the  plows.  As  they  are  excellent  workers,  they 
are  really  a  valuable  asset.  .  .  .  The  Hindus  are 
not  popular  around  Johannesburg ;  everywhere  I  have 
been  in  South  Africa,  the  Hindus  are  severely  criticised. 
.  .  .  In  the  Cape  Colony,  the  negroes  can  vote, 
and  have  many  other  privileges  not  accorded  them  in 
the  Transvaal.  There  are  thousands  of  mulattoes  in 
Cape  Colony,  but  very  few  in  the  Transvaal.  In  Cape 
Colony,  the  negroes  have  about  as  many  privileges  as 
negroes  have  in  the  northern  sections  of  the  United 
States,  but  in  most  other  portions  of  South  Africa  they 
have  fewer  privileges  than  the  negroes  of  Mississippi 
or  Alabama.  A  white  lawyer  with  whom  I  lately 
talked,  says  the  race  problem  here  is  really  a  very  seri- 
ous one.  Many  university  educated  negroes  are  com- 
ing to  Africa  from  the  United  States,  and  making 
trouble.  The  lawyer  also  said  that  the  African  M.  E. 
Church  is  a  source  of  much  trouble,  and  that  there  has 
been  serious  talk  of  prohibiting  it  in  the  Transvaal. 
.  .  .  During  my  stay  in  Johannesburg,  the  papers 
reported  a  meeting  of  the  South-African  Native  Na- 
tional Congress.  Fifteen  chiefs  and  200  other  delegates 
were  present.  The  chairman  delivered  his  address  in 
English,  and  it  was  interpreted  into  several  native 
languages.  "Gentlemen,"  said  the  speaker,  "this  land 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          251 

is  ours,  inalienable,  a  God-given  birthright.  We  do 
not  begrudge  others  a  fair  share  in  its  treasures,  but 
in  so  doing  we  do  not  propose  to  suffer  our  inalienable 
rights  to  be  encroached  upon.  More  than  is  adequate 
and  just  to  our  reasonable  progress  and  well-being  we 
do  not  ask,  but  that  we  demand  with  all  the  strength 
of  our  being."  Continuing,  he  said  that  he  did  not 
consider  the  natives  were  being  treated  fairly  by  the 
government.  In  some  respects  they  were  subjected  to 
"an  intolerable  state  of  slavery."  They  were  denied 
a  voice  in  the  country's  government,  even  in  legislation 
bearing  upon  their  own  life  and  people.  They  were 
fettered  by  pass  laws,  while  illiterate  men  who  could 
scarcely  writes  their  names,  and  whose  knowledge  of 
the  world's  history  was  limited  "to  the  bare  kopjes  of 
their  own  back  veld,"  were  entrusted  with  the  power 
of  governing  the  natives  and  their  land.  The  govern- 
ment of  the  land  granted  to  Indians,  Chinese,  Syrians, 
and  other  such  races,  regardless  of  character,  an  un- 
restricted liberty  to  travel,  to  trade,  and  to  purchase 
land,  while  they  (the  natives)  were  denied  all  such 
privileges.  (Applause.) 


MONDAY,  MARCH  10. — Johannesburg  is  possibly  the 
most  prosperous  town  in  the  world.  There  are  six  or 
seven  thousand  English  and  American  miners  em- 
ployed on  the  Rand,  or  gold  reef,  which  is  fifty  miles 
long  and  one  mile  wide.  Johannesburg  is  the  centre 
of  this  great  gold  district,  and  the  white  miners  make 
big  wages;  they  are  all  either  foremen  or  mine  con- 


252  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

tractors,  and  some  of  them  make  $500  a  month ;  $350 
a  month  pay  to  a  white  miner  is  not  at  all  unusual. 
The  real  work  is  done  by  the  negro  miners,  who  are 
brought  here  from  all  over  Africa  under  what  amounts 
to  indenture.  More  than  a  hundred  thousand  of  these 
are  employed  hi  the  mines,  and  they  receive  an  aver- 
age of  sixty  cents  a  day,  and  board.  They  live  at  the 
mines,  in  great  boarding-houses  which  accommodate, 
in  many  cases,  two  thousand.  No  women  are  allowed 
in  these  compounds,  and  the  miners  themselves  may 
only  leave  the  compounds  with  special  permits.  By  law, 
the  negroes  cannot  be  worked  more  than  eight  hours 
a  day  in  the  mines,  and  none  are  accepted  as  workmen 
who  do  not  agree  to  remain  at  least  six  months.  The 
white  bosses  have  "stand  around"  jobs;  they  do  no 
actual  labor.  The  best  white  miners  hi  the  world  are 
found  here,  because  of  the  high  pay.  The  gold-bear- 
ing rock  is  hoisted  to  the  surface  from  a  depth,  hi  some 
cases,  of  four  thousand  feet.  It  is  then  run  through 
stamp-mills,  and  crushed,  and  the  gold  extracted  by 
the  cyanide  process.  The  mountains  of  lime-rock  seen 
all  along  the  Rand  are  composed  of  the  gold-bearing 
rock  after  the  gold  has  been  extracted ;  in  some  cases, 
these  dumps  are  being  worked  over,  the  old  process 
of  extracting  gold  having  been  wasteful.  This  broken 
rock  is  used  for  concrete  work  and  for  street  paving, 
and  the  mine-owners  will  pay  to  have  it  hauled  off  their 
premises.  .  .  .  On  the  streets  this  morning  I  again 
met  James  Brady,  the  Atlanta,  Georgia,  man  whom  I 
met  yesterday  while  he  was  working  as  a  street-car 
conductor.  As  this  is  his  lay-off  day,  he  spent  con- 
siderable tune  with  us.  He  says  conductors  and  motor- 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          253 

men  average  about  $100  a  month.  He  complained  a 
good  deal  of  the  high  cost  of  living  in  Johannesburg, 
but  it  developed  that  prices  are  not  much  higher  here 
than  in  Atchison. 

"Think  of  it,"  he  said,  "a  good  porterhouse  steak 
costs  a  shilling  a  pound  here." 

Investigation  will  reveal  that  the  best  steaks  cost 
twenty-four  cents  a  pound  in  Atchison.  The  best 
bacon  costs  thirty  cents  a  pound  here ;  that  is  the  price 
in  Atchison,  next  door  to  eight  or  nine  packing-houses. 
Mr.  Brady  has  not  been  in  Atlanta,  Georgia,  for  four- 
teen years,  and  said  to  me : 

"In  Atlanta,  we  could  buy  good  butter  for  fifteen 
cents  a  pound." 

I  told  him  he  could  not  do  it  now,  and  he  was  greatly 
surprised  to  hear  of  the  manner  in  which  prices  have 
advanced  all  over  the  United  States.  .  .  .  We  took 
a  street-car  ride,  and  the  price  was  fifteen  cents  each 
going  out,  and  fifteen  cents  each  coming  back,  or  ninety 
cents  out  and  back  for  three  of  us.  It  was  the  longest 
street-car  ride  possible  in  Johannesburg ;  five  sections, 
at  three  cents  a  section.  .  .  .  Last  Fourth  of  July, 
Brady  put  an  American  flag  on  his  trolley-pole,  and  it 
remained  there  peacefully  from  6 : 30  in  the  morning 
until  noon.  At  that  hour  an  inspector  ordered  it  down. 
Brady  refused  to  take  it  down,  and  was  suspended  for 
three  days.  There  is  another  American  on  the  line, 
a  motorman,  and  he  tongue-lashed  the  inspector,  and 
was  also  suspended  for  three  days.  .  .  .  Brady's 
father  was  Captain  in  a  Georgia  company  in  the  re- 
bellion; five  of  his  sons  were  killed  in  the  battle  of 
Manassas.  Of  the  one  hundred  men  who  originally 


254  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

composed  the  elder  Brady's  company,  five  returned 
safe  and  sound  at  the  end  of  the  war.  The  others  were 
killed,  crippled,  or  died  from  illness.  .  .  .  You 
perhaps  imagine  that  because  the  English  whipped  the 
Boers,  the  English  control  the  Transvaal.  As  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  the  present  local  government,  elected  by  the 
people,  is  Boer.  The  Boers  in  politics  are  called  Na- 
tionalists ;  the  English  are  called  Unionists,  and  at  the 
recent  election  the  Nationalists  won.  There  is  a  Labor 
party  here,  also,  but  is  is  not  as  strong  as  it  is  in  Aus- 
tralia, New  Zealand,  or  England  itself.  The  Boer 
members  of  parliament  are  in  a  big  row  among  them- 
selves. One  leader  believes  in  reconciling  the  differ- 
ences between  the  Boers  and  English,  while  the  other 
is  a  fire-eater.  The  conservative  man  is  much  more 
popular  among  the  Boers,  apparently,  than  the  fire- 
eater.  .  .  .  The  Boers  frequently  quarrel  among 
themselves.  There  are  two  branches  of  the  Dutch 
Reformed  Church,  and  several  years  ago  the  warring 
factions  armed,  and  almost  engaged  in  civil  war,  over 
the  interpretation  of  a  passage  of  scripture.  .  .  . 
Johannesburg  has  recently  opened  a  new  and  very  hand- 
some public  market  on  the  site  of  the  old  Coolie  village. 
The  plague  broke  out  among  the  Coolies,  so  their  village 
was  burned,  and  now  the  blacks  live  in  a  section  further 
out.  Hindus,  negroes,  Chinese  and  Malays  live  there ; 
no  white  resident  is  permitted  in  the  village,  nor  is  a 
Hindu  or  other  black  permitted  to  live  in  any  other 
section  of  Johannesburg.  Dr.  Gregory,  a  Hindu  who 
was  educated  in  Edinburgh  and  who  married  a  Scotch 
wife,  had  a  large  practice  among  the  whites,  but  when 
the  order  came  segregating  the  blacks,  he  was  com- 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          255 

pelled  to  move  from  his  handsome  house  down-town 
to  the  dirty  Coolie  village.  There  are  ten  to  fifteen 
thousand  blacks  in  this  village,  and  many  of  the  Hindus 
are  rich ;  but  they  are  not  allowed  to  ride  on  the  street 
cars  which  pass  their  doors.  In  Durban,  many  of  the 
Hindus  are  gardeners ;  here,  they  buy  fruit  and  vege- 
tables, and  peddle  them  in  various  parts  of  town,  from 
small  carts.  .  .  .  There  is  a  Jew  market  in  Jo- 
hannesburg which  is  very  peculiar.  It  is  an  open  field, 
on  valuable  ground  owned  by  the  city,  and  everything 
in  the  way  of  household  goods,  clothing,  etc.,  is  dis- 
played in  the  open  air.  Nearly  everything  offered  is 
second-hand,  and  is  bought  by  negroes.  The  market 
occupies  an  entire  block,  and  I  found  it  very  interest- 
ing. ...  At  the  markets  here,  eggs  that  are  guar- 
anteed fresh,  sell  at  three  shillings,  or  72  cents,  per 
dozen,  while  "farm  eggs"  are  sold  at  forty-two  cents. 
Penguin  eggs  are  collected  in  large  numbers  from  the 
islands  around  the  coast,  and  their  consumption  in 
Cape  Town  in  certain  seasons  exceeds  that  of  the  do- 
mestic fowl.  The  penguin  eggs  are  palatable,  nutri- 
tious, and  easily  digestible;  the  "white"  is  of  a  sea- 
green  color,  the  egg  is  twice  the  size  of  the  usual  hen's 
egg,  and  must  be  boiled  twenty  minutes.  These  eggs 
are  sent  all  over  South  Africa,  and  to  London.  Speak- 
ing of  eggs,  one  morning  at  the  Langham  Hotel  I  saw 
a  guest  bring  two  eggs  to  the  dining-room,  call  a  waiter, 
and  give  orders  as  to  how  the  eggs  should  be  cooked. 
In  a  few  minutes  the  man  came  in  to  breakfast,  and 
the  eggs  were  brought  in  from  the  kitchen.  .  .  . 
Today  I  passed  a  place  called  an  "American  restau- 
rant." This  sign  was  displayed :  "A  complete  meal. 


256  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

including  a  glass  of  beer,  one  shilling."  .  .  .  An- 
other peculiarity  of  the  English :  When  they  drive, 
they  turn  to  the  left,  on  meeting  another  driver ;  but 
on  the  sidewalk,  when  they  meet  another  pedestrian, 
they  turn  to  the  right. 


TUESDAY,  MARCH  11. — At  the  meat  shops  in  Jo- 
hannesburg, pickled  beef  feet  are  sold  as  pickled  pigs' 
feet  are  sold  in  America.  .  .  .  The  morning  news- 
papers of  Johannesburg  sell  at  six  cents  each.  The 
best  newspapers  of  New  York  and  Chicago  sell  at  one 
cent.  The  Transvaal  Leader  of  this  morning  says  the 
rain  at  Durban  continues,  and  that  the  storm  is  the 
worst  since  1858.  When  I  was  there,  it  was  said  at 
first  that  the  storm  was  the  worst  in  two  years ;  then 
it  was  said  it  was  the  worst  in  ten  years,  and  now  the 
statement  is  telegraphed  broadcast  that  the  storm  at 
Durban  is  the  worst  in  fifty-five  years.  It  is  wonder- 
ful what  the  Atchison  hoodoo  can  do  in  the  way  of 
disturbing  nature.  The  weather  in  Johannesburg  is 
fine.  The  days  are  somewhat  warm,  but  the  nights 
are  quite  cool.  Except  a  light  shower  this  afternoon, 
which  was  agreeable,  there  has  been  no  rain  since  our 
arrival.  .  .  .  The  Transvaal  Leader -has  one  de- 
partment I  have  never  seen  in  any  other  newspaper. 
Every  morning  it  prints  a  list  of  the  loaded  railway  cars 
received  in  Johannesburg  the  day  before.  Imagine  a 
Chicago  paper  printing  something  like  the  following: 
"Yesterday  there  were  received  in  Chicago  the  follow- 
ing loaded  freight  cars :  Illinois  Central,  Nos.  100282, 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          257 

287689,  159867,  829217,"  etc.,  followed  by  two  dozen 
or  more  railways  represented  in  the  city.  Such  a  list 
would  take  up  as  much  space  as  the  baseball  scores. 
.  .  .  We  have  cantaloupes  every  day  at  the  hotel, 
and  they  are  surprisingly  good.  The  varieties  are  new 
to  us.  We  also  have  roasting-ears,  and  the  proprietor 
tells  me  they  cost  six  to  eight  cents  a  dozen,  in  quan- 
tities. .  .  .  Four  of  the  guests  at  this  hotel  we 
knew  as  passengers  on  the  "Anchises."  .  .  .  Warned 
by  the  example  of  Australia,  South  Africa  has  pro- 
hibited the  importation  of  rabbits,  except  that  they  are 
permitted  hi  one  small  island  near  the  coast.  .  .  . 
The  fire  department  made  an  exhibition  run  today  to 
amuse  the  sailors  from  the  warship  "New  Zealand," 
a  favorite  trick  hi  all  American  country  towns.  The 
apparatus  here  is  motor-driven,  new,  and  of  the  best. 
.  .  .  All  the  street  and  railway  laborers,  and  labor- 
ers generally,  are  negroes,  and  they  receive  an  average 
of  $22  a  month.  A  negro  laborer  in  the  United  States 
receives  more  than  twice  that.  The  Georgia  man  I 
met  on  Sunday  says  the  South-African  negroes  are  no 
better  laborers  than  the  negroes  of  the  South.  If  the 
South-African  government  should  decide  that  the  pros- 
perity of  the  country  depended  upon  the  negroes  work- 
ing for  a  shilling  a  day,  such  a  law  would  be  passed, 
without  regard  to  the  Rights  of  Man.  Chinese  labor 
was  tried  in  the  Johannesburg  mines,  and  at  one  time 
there  were  more  than  50,000  Chinese  in  the  country. 
The  Chinese  gradually  demanded  more  wages,  and  as 
a  result  they  were  ordered  to  leave  South  Africa,  a  fate 
which  is  now  overtaking  the  Hindus.  Many  em- 
ployers of  labor  favor  inviting  the  Chinese  to  come  back. 


258  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

I  saw  a  statement  in  a  newspaper  today  that  if  American 
miners'  wages  were  paid  along  the  Rand,  the  mines 
would  show  a  loss  instead  of  a  profit.  .  .  .  The 
Transvaal  Advertiser  of  this  morning  printed  a  table 
showing  that  the  gold  output  of  the  Rand  for  February 
was  734,122  ounces,  worth  a  little  more  than  fifteen 
and  a  half  million  dollars.  The  same  table  shows  that 
the  average  profits  of  the  Rand  gold  mines  amount 
to  $170,000  per  day.  In  South  Africa,  184,000  men 
are  employed  in  the  gold  mines,  8,000  in  the  coal  mines, 
and  35,000  in  the  diamond  mines.  Practically  all  these 
miners  are  native  negroes,  so  that  the  negroes  are  the 
source  of  the  country's  prosperity.  The  negroes  are 
compelled  to  work  for  whatever  the  whites  decide  is 
necessary  to  keep  the  country's  industries  flourishing. 
In  many  places  here,  the  blacks  outnumber  the  whites 
fifty  to  one,  but  the  blacks  must  work  for  whatever 
wages  the  whites  are  willing  to  pay.  If  they  do  not, 
the  whites  say  the  blacks  are  in  rebellion  again,  and 
send  for  British  soldiers.  .  .  .  The  Transvaal 
Leader,  the  paper  I  buy  every  morning  for  six  cents, 
prints  a  summary  of  the  news  in  every  issue,  and  I 
often  remark  how  little  real  news  there  is,  considering 
that  the  Leader  devotes  twelve  nine-column  pages  to  it. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  there  isn't  a  great  deal  of  real  news ; 
the  best  the  newspaper  men  can  do  is  to  make  gossip 
interesting.  .  .  .  The  passion  for  England  here  is 
very  marked;  the  bulk  of  the  reading  matter  in  the 
Leader  seems  to  be  telegrams  or  correspondence  from 
London.  An  Englishman  will  locate  in  the  United 
States,  and  at  once  become  an  American,  but  in  South 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          259 

Africa,  New  Zealand  or  Australia,  he  is  more  English 
than  he  was  in  England.  .  .  .  When  the  new  mar- 
ket-house was  built  in  Johannesburg,  it  was  so  far  out 
of  the  way  that  people  wouldn't  patronize  it,  although 
it  was  a  magnificent  structure  668x230  feet.  There- 
upon the  street  railway  company  went  to  the  rescue, 
built  a  line  past  the  new  market-house,  and  gave  free 
transfers  to  and  from  it  on  all  lines.  These  were  the 
first  transfers  ever  issued  in  Johannesburg,  and  the 
people  are  already  inquiring:  "Why  can't  transfers 
be  issued  in  other  cases?"  I  predict  that  this  enter- 
prise on  the  part  of  the  street  railway  company  will 
result  in  grumbling  and  agitation  that  will  finally  force 
free  transfers  generally.  The  street  railway  receipts 
here  now  amount  to  more  than  an  average  of  $100  per 
car  daily,  but  with  the  entering-wedge  referred  to  above, 
look  out  for  a  howl  for  lower  fares.  The  people  here 
have  never  experienced  the  joy  of  fighting  the  street 
railway,  and,  when  they  get  at  it,  they  will  like  it  as 
much  as  do  people  in  American  towns.  .  .  .  All 
the  people  in  foreign  countries  have,  I  think,  an  ex- 
aggerated notion  of  the  prosperity  prevailing  in  the 
United  States.  Most  of  the  young  men  I  meet  are 
anxious  to  emigrate,  and  they  believe  conditions  in 
the  United  States  are  better  than  they  really  are. 
Ours  is  a  great  country,  but  hard  work  and  poverty 
are  not  unknown  in  the  best  parts  of  it.  .  .  .  This 
morning  we  called  at  an  office  building  to  see  a  number 
of  Americans  who  have  been  exiled  in  South  Africa 
many  years.  An  ex-American  took  us  around  and 
introduced  us  to  ex-Americans  in  the  various  offices. 


260  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

We  looked  so  "raw"  that  our  conductor  was  immensely 
amused.  He  said  to  another  ex-American,  the  man- 
ager of  a  bank : 

"And  yet  they  are  surprised  that  people  everywhere 
know  they  are  Americans!" 

I  suppose  we  are  called  "raw  Yankees"  here,  as  we 
at  home  call  new  arrivals  from  the  old  country  "raw 
Dutch."  Our  conductor  in  the  office  building  told  us 
later  that  the  elevator  man  said  to  him,  after  our  de- 
parture : 

"Excuse  me,  sir,  but  were  those  people  Americans?" 

"No,"  the  ex-American  replied,  "they  were  Rus- 
sians. Why  do  you  ask  if  they  were  Americans  ?  " 

"Because,  sir,"  the  elevator  man  replied,  "I  couldn't 
understand  them  when  they  inquired  for  you." 

When  people  talk  to  us,  they  talk  slowly,  and  use  a 
good  many  signs,  as  we  do  at  home  when  talking  to 
foreigners.  .  .  .  But  so  far  as  looks  go,  I  think  I 
have  solved  the  problem.  Today  I  bought  a  London 
hat,  and  wear  it  with  the  rim  turned  down  in  the  back, 
instead  of  turned  down  in  front.  I  imagine  that  peo- 
ple now  say  of  us : 

"The  man  looks  all  right,  but  who  is  the  frowzy- 
looking  woman  with  him?" 

The  leading  ladies'  tailor  in  Kansas  City  is  a  Ger- 
man named  Mendelsohn.  If  Mendelsohn  could  hear 
the  criticism  his  suits  attract  in  South  Africa,  he  would 
go  crazy.  .  .  .  Speaking  of  the  English  habit  of 
turning  the  hat-brim  down  behind,  instead  of  down  in 
front,  as  American  men  wear  their  soft  hats,  some  Eng- 
lishmen in  Africa  go  to  an  extreme,  and  wear  the  brim 
of  their  hats  turned  down,  all  the  way  'round.  .  .  . 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          261 

At  home,  I  have  noticed  the  quiet  amusement  with 
which  a  German-American  regards  a  raw  Dutchman 
who  has  just  landed.  I  think  the  Americans  we  meet 
here  regard  us  in  the  same  way.  They  are  polite,  and 
glad  to  see  us,  but  they  are  undoubtedly  amused  at 
our  appearance,  our  ways  and  our  talk.  ...  A 
peculiarity  of  Johannesburg  is  that  coal  mines  are  oper- 
ated within  sight  of  the  gold  mines ;  and  in  no  other 
gold  camp  is  fuel  so  convenient. 


WEDNESDAY,  MARCH  12. — The  first  Americans  we 
met  in  Johannesburg  are  interested  in  banking,  life 
insurance  and  real  estate,  and  occupy  a  fine  building 
of  their  own  on  a  down-town  corner.  One  of  them  is 
T.  W.  Schlessinger,  formerly  of  New  York.  Eight 
years  ago  he  was  a  life  insurance  solicitor.  Today  he 
is  the  controlling  power  in  five  different  important 
companies,  and  we  hear  it  said  that  within  two  or  three 
years  he  may  be  the  leading  man  of  Johannesburg. 
I.  F.  Atterbury,  manager  of  the  African  Realty  Trust, 
is  not  only  an  American,  but  he  comes  from  St.  Joseph, 
Missouri,  which  we  can  see  from  Potato  Hill  Farm. 
And  what  still  further  endeared  him  to  us  is  the  fact 
that  his  wife  also  comes  from  St.  Joseph.  Nineteen 
years  ago  Mr.  Atterbury  was  a  real-estate  agent  in 
St.  Joseph,  and,  as  the  town  was  dull  at  that  time,  he 
was  greatly  interested  in  the  prosperity  reports  that 
came  in  every  little  while  from  Johannesburg,  South 
Africa.  After  his  arrival  here,  he  made  money,  but 
lost  it  during  the  business  panic  following  the  Boer 


262  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

war.  During  a  part  of  the  war,  he  was  acting  United 
States  consul  at  Pretoria.  When  the  war  closed,  he 
again  engaged  in  the  real-estate  business  in  Johannes- 
burg, and  has  long  been  a  part  of  the  "American  in- 
fluence" that  undoubtedly  exists  here.  .  .  .  Soon 
after  we  met  Mr.  Atterbury,  we  all  started  out  in  an 
automobile  to  call  on  his  wife.  But  we  found  her  out ; 
she  had  gone  to  call  on  an  American  friend,  Mrs.  Mark 
Gary,  in  one  of  the  suburbs.  So  we  went  out  there, 
on  the  way  passing  through  many  of  the  most  wonder- 
ful sections  of  this  wonderful  town.  Mrs.  Atterbury 
and  Mrs.  Gary  had  gone  down-town,  we  found,  on  ar- 
riving at  the  Gary  home,  so  we  sat  down  on  the  ve- 
randa and  waited  for  them.  Both  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Gary 
are  from  California,  and  their  home  is  one  of  the  show 
places  of  Johannesburg;  because  of  its  lavish  display 
of  flowers,  for  one  reason.  The  maid  served  tea  on 
the  veranda,  and  the  time  passed  pleasantly  and  rap- 
idly in  listening  to  Mr.  Atterbury  talk  of  South  Africa. 
He  looks  like  a  typical  American,  in  spite  of  his  nine- 
teen years'  continuous  residence  here.  .  .  .  Pres- 
ently Mrs.  Gary  and  Mrs.  Atterbury  arrived  from  down- 
town, and  Mrs.  Atterbury  said  to  us : 

"I  haven't  lost  my  American  accent,  have  I?" 
And  she  hadn't;    nor  had  Mrs.  Gary,  which  is  not 
surprising,  since  she  visited  her  home  in  California  last 
year.     But  poor  Mrs.  Atterbury  has  been  here  nine- 
teen years. 

"Isham,"  she  said  to  her  husband,  with  genuine 
American  enthusiasm,  "I'm  going  home  with  them. 
May  I?"  When  I  took  a  kodak  picture  of  the  party, 
Mrs.  Atterbury  wondered  that  she  "didn't  break  the 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.    263 

camera,"  which  no  one  will  dispute  is  the  genuine  Amer- 
ican language.  Over  here,  people  use  the  term  "You 
see,"  a  good  deal,  which  is  equivalent  to  our  "Don't 
you  know?"  An  Englishman  says,  "We  can't  have 
the  ocean  in  London,  you  see,"  while  an  American  says, 
"He  was  the  smarter  man,  and  had  it  all  his  own  way, 
don't  you  know?"  Mr.  Atterbury  used  the  expression 
"You  see"  a  few  times,  but  otherwise  we  talked  only 
the  Kansas-Missouri-California  language.  At  1  P.  M. 
we  left  for  town,  the  driver  nearly  running  over  every- 
body on  the  way. 

"The  only  trouble  with  this  man,"  Mr.  Atterbury 
said,  "is  that  he  runs  too  fast,  and  I  can  do  nothing 
with  him." 

Was  there  ever  a  man  who  could  control  his  auto- 
mobile driver?  .  .  .  South  Africa  is  the  paradise 
of  the  lover  of  flowers.  At  a  recent  flower  show  in 
Pretoria,  one  hundred  and  seventy  different  varieties 
of  roses  were  exhibited.  But  all  flowers  here  are  almost 
without  scent,  which  is  true  of  all  countries  where 
flowers  are  particularly  abundant  and  grown  without 
trouble.  .  .  .  Grass-seed  is  not  sown  broadcast 
here,  but  is  drilled  in,  in  rows.  If  well  watered,  it 
spreads  and  covers  the  ground.  The  grass-seed  most 
generally  used  comes  from  Florida,  or  of  a  variety  which 
originated  in  Florida.  .  .  .  The  "American  in- 
fluence" has  been  very  marked  in  Johannesburg.  In- 
deed, had  it  not  been  for  an  American,  probably  the 
Rand  (pronounced  "Rond")  would  be  abandoned  to- 
day, instead  of  producing  a  daily  profit  of  nearly  $200,- 
000.  In  1885  the  mines  apparently  "played  out," 
and  it  was  John  Hays  Hammond,  an  American  engi- 


264  TRAVEL  LETTERS  PROM 

neer,  who  encouraged  mine-owners  to  dig  deep,  and 
strike  the  vein  further  down.  The  Johannesburg  ore 
is  of  low  grade,  much  of  it  averaging  only  $4  per  ton, 
while  a  little  of  it  is  worth  $25.  The  ore  from  the  great 
Homestake  mine  at  Lead  City,  South  Dakota,  is  worth 
only  half  as  much,  yet  many  fortunes  have  been  taken 
from  this  mine.  The  Homestake  mine  at  Lead  City 
is  the  real  source  of  the  Hearst  magazines  and  news- 
papers. ...  A  good  many  years  ago,  three  thou- 
sand American  mining  engineers  were  employed  along 
the  Rand,  and  a  few  of  the  best  ones  received  from  fifty 
to  seventy-five  thousand  dollars  a  year,  but  now  the 
number  employed  does  not  exceed  four  hundred.  I 
have  heard  it  hinted  that  as  soon  as  the  Americans 
taught  the  English  how  to  mine  and  extract  the  gold 
from  the  Rand  ores,  there  were  bickerings  over  salaries, 
and  the  Americans  went  elsewhere.  The  American 
mining  engineers  are  highly  regarded  for  many  reasons, 
but  especially  because  of  their  quickness  and  cleverness 
in  meeting  difficulties.  I  have  also  heard  it  hinted  that 
the  existence  of  the  Kimberley  diamond  mines  is  due 
to  an  American.  Johannesburg  is  more  like  an  Ameri- 
can town  than  any  other  we  have  seen.  This  is  another 
result  of  the  "American  influence ;"  the  business  meth- 
ods here  are  snappy,  after  the  American  fashion.  .  .  . 
Mr.  Atterbury  says  that  the  raw  native,  taken  from  the 
farm  and  trained,  makes  a  very  efficient  and  faithful 
servant,  but  that  the  missionary  negro  is  no  account. 
Mr.  Atterbury  says  that  a  bishop  of  the  Methodist 
Church  who  had  done  much  work  in  Africa,  once  said 
to  him : 

"I  don't  know  that  I  have  ever  actually  converted 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          265 

a  native  to  a  better  life.  The  natives  so  easily  for- 
get my  teaching  that  I  am  sometimes  troubled  with 
the  fear  that  all  my  work  has  been  in  vain." 

Wherever  I  go,  I  hear  grave  doubts  expressed  as  to 
the  missionary  experiment.  .  .  .  Most  of  the  Ameri- 
cans I  meet  here  were  originally  in  sympathy  with  the 
English,  so  far  as  the  Boer  war  was  concerned,  but 
ended  by  being  in  sympathy  with  the  Boers.  .  .  . 
There  is  a  man  here  named  Sir  Abe  Bailey.  It  seems 
to  me  that  a  man  with  a  title  should  not  be  called 
"Abe,"  but  "Sir  Cecil,"  or  "Sir  Chauncey,"  or  some- 
thing else  equally  euphonious.  .  .  .  Natives  are 
publicly  whipped  here,  when  they  do  not  behave. 
And  when  a  native  is  killed  in  the  mines  or  elsewhere, 
the  papers  do  not  print  his  name;  they  refer  to  him 
simply  as  a  "native."  .  .  .  This  evening  we  dined 
with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Atterbury  and  their  young  gentle- 
man son,  Manfred,  at  the  Grand  National  Hotel,  where 
they  live.  Manfred  Atterbury  was  born  in  Maysville, 
Missouri,  but  came  here  as  a  baby,  and  has  never  been 
back  to  the  country  of  his  birth.  He  is  exactly  like 
an  American  boy,  except  that  he  occasionally  uses  the 
expression,  "You  see,"  which  is  used  so  much  over 
here  that  I  am  contracting  the  habit  myself.  He  has 
attended  English  and  Boer  schools,  and,  like  the  Texas 
congressman,  doesn't  know  where  he  is  at.  His  mother, 
who  took  charge  of  her  son's  education,  as  good  mothers 
do,  tells  some  amusing  stories  about  it.  One  day  the 
boy  was  sent  to  the  foot  of  his  class  for  pronouncing 
"Chicago"  as  it  is  pronounced  everywhere  in  the  United 
States.  The  teacher  said  the  correct  pronunciation 
was  "Chic-a-go."  The  young  man  also  got  in  trouble 


266        .    TRAVEL  LETTERS  PROM 

because  he  pronounced  "Ohio"  as  he  had  heard  his 
father  and  mother  pronounce  it :  the  teacher  said  the 
correct  pronunciation  is  "0-e-o."  The  teacher  was 
an  Oxford  man,  and  the  English  school  books  in  use 
named  only  four  American  seaports — none  at  all  on 
the  Pacific.  The  history  in  use  devoted  only  seven 
lines  to  the  American  Revolution,  treating  it  as  a 
trifling  affair  in  which  the  English  gave  the  Americans 
their  independence.  .  .  .  (When  Americans  abuse 
the  English,  it  is  customary  for  them  to  say,  "Of  course 
the  English  are,  in  many  respects,  a  great  people." 
Mr.  Atterbury  said  it  at  this  stage  of  the  conversation.) 
.  .  .  Probably  you  know  that  in  England  and  its 
colonies,  the  song,  "For  He's  a  Jolly  Good  Fellow," 
is  sung  very  frequently,  particularly  at  banquets  and 
.other  places  where  grog  is  passed  around.  Mrs.  Atter- 
bury says  that  once  an  equal  suffrage  meeting  was  held 
in  the  banqueting-room  of  the  Grand  National.  Only 
women  attended,  and  they  frequently  sang,  "For  He's 
a  Jolly  Good  Fellow."  An  equal  suffrage  meeting  was 
being  held  in  the  banqueting-room  of  the  Grand  Na- 
tional the  night  I  was  there,  but,  greatly  to  our  sur- 
prise, no  windows  were  smashed.  Several  stout  ladies 
appeared  who,  I  thought,  certainly  had  rocks  under 
their  aprons,  but  the  meeting  was  quiet,  and  the  no- 
ticeable protuberances  turned  out  to  be  Ihe  middle- 
age  spread  instead  of  rocks.  .  .  .  The  American 
party  finally  broke  up  at  10 :  20  p.  M.,  with  a  statement 
from  Mrs.  Atterbury  that  an  English  paper  here  lately 
referred  to  an  incident  as  happening  in  America  in 
"the  state  of  Cincinnati."  .  .  .  We  handled  the 
English  rather  roughly,  but  I  venture  to  say  they  get 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          267 

even ;  indeed,  taking  one  roast  with  another,  no  doubt 
they  are  far  ahead  of  us.  I  intend  to  have  an  Ameri- 
can party  at  my  hotel  on  Friday  evening,  and  Mark 
Gary  will  have  another  on  Saturday,  when  we  will 
again  attempt  to  catch  up  with  the  English.  When  the 
English  roast  us,  I  hope  they  are  as  fair  as  we  are,  and 
frequently  say : 

"Of  course,  in  some  respects  the  Americans  are  a 
remarkable  people.     No  one  will  care  to  deny  that." 


THURSDAY,  MARCH  13. — This  morning  Mr.  Atter- 
bury  found  it  necessary  to  go  twenty  miles  into  the 
country,  to  look  at  a  farm,  and  took  us  with  him.  R. 
A.  Davis,  government  horticulturist  for  South  Africa, 
also  accepted  an  invitation  to  go.  Mr.  Davis  was 
born  in  England,  but  spent  several  years  in  California ; 
he  says  he  learned  all  he  knows  about  horticulture  in 
California,  as  that  state  is  undoubtedly  headquarters 
for  horticultural  information.  In  his  way,  he  is  as 
noted  an  expert  as  our  F.  D.  Coburn,  and  it  was  a  priv- 
ilege to  spend  several  hours  in  the  country  with  him. 
Here  is  a  South-African  apple  story  I  had  direct  from 
Mr.  Davis.  His  son  has  an  apple  orchard  of  three 
acres,  containing  three  hundred  trees  ten  years  old. 
Last  year  the  younger  Mr.  Davis  sold  his  apples  for 
ten  thousand  dollars,  or  more  than  $3,000  an  acre. 
These  figures  are  gross ;  the  cost  of  picking  and  mar- 
keting the  fruit  was  fifteen  per  cent.  We  had  two 
punctures  during  the  ride,  and  Mr.  Davis  told  me  an- 
other big  South-African  story  while  the  driver  made 


268  TRAVEL  LETTERS  PROM 

repairs.  The  most  prosperous  farming  country  in  the 
world  is  the  ostrich  district  in  Cape  Colony;  instead 
of  owning  one  automobile,  as  do  our  successful  corn  and 
wheat  farmers,  the  ostrich  farmers  own  two  and  three 
automobiles  each.  The  best  ostrich  country  is  known 
as  the  Oudtshoorn  district,  and  is  probably  70x60 
miles  in  extent.  Mr.  Davis  told  of  one  irrigated  farm 
of  four  hundred  acres  and  1,800  birds  for  which  an 
offer  of  $560,000  was  lately  refused.  The  ostrich 
farmers  are  nearly  all  Boers,  although  many  Jews  live 
in  the  district  to  trade  in  the  feathers.  It  is  said  that 
more  than  one  hundred  of  the  farmers  hi  the  bird  dis- 
trict are  worth  more  than  $250,000  each.  Alfalfa  is 
grown  extensively.  One  acre  of  alfalfa  will  graze  five 
ostriches,  and  the  average  ostrich  will  annually  pro- 
duce feathers  worth  $25.  Ostriches  are  raised  in  Cali- 
fornia and  elsewhere,  but  conditions  for  ostrich  farm- 
ing are  nearest  perfection  in  South  Africa.  A  good 
many  ostriches  run  wild  in  Africa,  but  feathers  from 
the  wild  birds  are  not  good.  Ostrich  eggs  or  living 
birds  cannot  be  taken  out  of  South  Africa,  and  some 
growers  have  fancy  strains  of  birds  that  are  worth  from 
$2,000  to  $2,500  per  pair.  One  South-African  ostrich 
king  has  devoted  so  much  time  to  ostriches,  and  lived 
among  them  so  long,  that  both  Mr.  Davis  and  Mr. 
Atterbury  agreed  that  he  had  grown  to  look  like  an 
ostrich.  .  .  .  Mr.  Davis  says  South  Africa  is  a 
better  fruit  country  than  California,  and  that  it  will 
produce  better  oranges  with  less  effort.  .  .  .  The 
two  punctures  caused  us  to  be  late,  and  Mr.  Atterbury's 
automobile  driver,  whom  he  called  Bristow,  fairly  flew 
over  the  ground.  I  sat  on  the  back  seat  with  Mr.  At- 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          269 

terbury  and  Mr.  Davis,  while  Adelaide  rode  in  front 
with  the  driver.  Mr.  Atterbury  frequently  tapped 
Bristow  on  the  back  with  his  cane,  and  said:  "Too 
fast!"  and  Bristow  slowed  up  for  a  time,  but  in  a  few 
minutes  would  be  running  faster  than  ever.  The 
South-African  roads  are  naturally  good,  as  they  are  in 
western  Kansas.  Our  road  lay  along  the  railway,  and 
every  mile  or  two  there  was  a  stone  block-house, 
erected  by  the  English  dusing  the  Boer  war,  for  the 
protection  of  the  railroad.  This  line  of  block-houses 
extends  from  Capetown  to  a  point  four  hundred  miles 
beyond  Johannesburg,  a  distance  of  something  like 
fourteen  hundred  miles.  The  Boer  war  almost  ruined 
South  Africa,  and  resulted  in  the  death  of  25,000  Eng- 
lish soldiers,  and  probably  4,000  Boer  soldiers.  In  the 
concentration  camps  of  the  English,  it  is  said  22,000 
Boer  women  and  children  died,  because  of  conditions 
which  resembled  the  conditions  under  Weyler  in  Cuba. 
England  spent  millions  and  almost  billions  in  the  war ; 
yet  it  was  brought  on  by  a  handful  of  alien  Jews.  War 
is  the  most  wicked,  senseless  thing  men  engage  in. 
.  .  .  No  one  disputes  that  the  Boers  were  terrible 
fighters.  Mr.  Davis  recalled  a  limerick  composed  by 
an  English  soldier  during  the  war.  It  ran  in  this  way : 
"There  was  an  old  Boer  who  hid  in  a  trench  with  a  bul- 
let-proof lid.  And  when  the  English  came  nigh,  he 
said  with  a  sigh,  'I  can  bag  the  whole  lot' — and  he 
did."  .  .  .  South  Africa  does  not  encourage  immi- 
gration. The  Boers  are  in  control,  and  they  do  not 
want  new-comers,  since  they  know  that  the  immigrants 
must  come  mainly  from  England,  and  that  every  immi- 
grant means  another  vote  against  them.  .  .  .  Mr. 


270  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

Davis  told  me  that  New-Zealanders  are  much  more 
popular  in  England  than  Australians ;  the  Australians 
have  entirely  too  much  admiration  for  the  United 
States  to  suit  England.  .  .  .  The  flower  we  call 
cosmos  grows  wild  here;  we  saw  many  acres  in  full 
bloom.  .  .  .  Wherever  we  have  been  in  South 
Africa,  evidences  of  prosperity  are  abundant.  The 
country  is  growing  rapidly,  and  every  man  who  can 
afford  it  is  buying  a  piece  of  land  with  a  view  of  put- 
ting out  an  orchard.  Almost  in  sight  of  Johannesburg, 
good  fruit  land  may  be  bought  for  $25  an  acre.  I  make 
this  statement  on  the  authority  of  Mr.  Atterbury,  a 
practical  real-estate  man.  .  .  .  Possibly  you  think 
of  the  Boer  farmers  of  South  Africa  as  hard-working 
men.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  they  are  all  gentlemen 
farmers;  they  do  not  go  into  the  fields,  and  do  hard 
manual  labor,  as  do  our  farmers — no  one  works  here 
except  the  negroes.  Mr.  Atterbury  often  goes  into 
the  country  to  look  at  land,  and  says  he  usually  finds 
the  Boer  farmers  sitting  around  the  house,  talking  with 
the  neighbors.  Occasionally  they  go  out  into  their 
fields,  to  see  that  the  negroes  are  working  properly, 
but  they  are  above  manual  labor.  During  the  morn- 
ing, we  met  a  good  many  Boer  farmers  with  ox  teams 
of  from  three  to  a  dozen  span ;  but  the  farmers  always 
rode  in  the  wagons,  while  their  negroes  walked  and 
drove.  In  working  ox  teams  here,  a  negro  boy  always 
walks  ahead,  and  leads  the  head  span,  while  two  negro 
men  walk  behind,  and  use  whips.  .  .  .  We  re- 
turned to  Johannesburg  at  2  p.  M.,  undecided  whether 
to  call  the  driver  "Bristow,  the  Aviator,"  or  "Flying 
Bristow." 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          271 

FRIDAY,  MARCH  14. — Yesterday  evening,  in  com- 
pany with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Atterbury,  we  left  Johannes- 
burg for  Pretoria,  capital  of  the  Transvaal  and  of  the 
South- African  United  States.  The  distance  is  thirty- 
eight  miles,  and  the  road  good.  Flying  Bristow  made 
the  trip  in  an  hour  and  three  minutes.  Thirty-eight 
miles  an  hour  in  an  automobile  does  not  sound  very  fast, 
but  ride  it  over  country  roads  in  South  Africa,  and  you 
will  agree  that  it  is  a  terrific*  pace.  I  never  before  trav- 
eled at  such  a  speed  in  an  automobile.  There  are  many 
hills  on  the  way  to  Pretoria,  and  Flying  Bristow  crept 
up  these,  as  the  Atterbury  machine  is  not  a  good  hill- 
climber.  It  is  a  Talbott,  made  in  England,  and  dur- 
ing the  past  two  years  has  traveled  40,000  miles  hi  at- 
tending to  the  affairs  of  the  African  Realty  Trust,  of 
which  Mr.  Atterbury  is  general  manager.  On  a  level, 
and  down  the  hills,  I  have  no  doubt  we  traveled  fifty 
miles  an  hour  yesterday  afternoon.  Mrs.  Atterbury 
rode  in  front,  but  had  no  more  influence  with  Bristow 
than  has  her  husband.  When  we  stepped  out  of  the 
machine  at  Pretoria,  I  remarked  to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  At- 
terbury that  we  had  just  had  a  very  speedy  ride,  where- 
upon Flying  Bristow  smilingly  said  that  Mr.  Schless- 
inger,  his  other  employer,  would  consider  our  pace  a 
slow  one.  So  Mr.  Schlessinger  seems  to  be  responsible 
for  Flying  Bristow.  And  if  Mr.  Schlessinger  doesn't 
look  out,  he  won't  live  to  see  his  five  institutions  take 
a  high  place  in  South-African  finance,  for  Bristow  un- 
doubtedly drives  too  fast.  He  has  never  had  an  acci- 
dent, but  one  is  coming  to  him,  and  I  sincerely  hope  that 
when  it  arrives,  neither  Mr.  Atterbury  nor  Mr.  Schless- 
inger will  be  in  the  machine.  .  .  .  Mr.  and  Mrs. 


272  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

Atterbury  spent  a  good  many  months  in  Pretoria  dur- 
ing the  Boer  war ;  part  of  the  time  Mr.  Atterbury  was 
American  consul.  On  one  occasion  the  English  shelled 
the  Boer  forts  nearly  all  day,  and  every  shell  passed 
over  the  Atterbury  home ;  one  exploding  shell  broke  a 
window  in  the  American  consulate.  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Atterbury  say  that  a  shell,  in  passing  high  above  you, 
shrieks  and  screams  like  a  living  thing  in  distress. 
They  know  Pretoria  as  well  as  you  know  the  town  in 
which  you  live,  so  that  we  had  excellent  guides  in  our 
visit  to  the  capital.  ...  I  had  a  room  on  the  sec- 
ond floor  of  the  Grand  Hotel,  facing  the  old  Boer  cap- 
ital just  across  the  street.  During  the  war,  President 
Krueger  (Oom  Paul)  and  members  of  the  war  board 
met  daily  in  a  room  just  opposite  my  room;  people 
used  to  sit  on  the  hotel  veranda  and  watch  the  war 
board  in  session.  We  visited  the  modest  home  of 
President  Krueger  this  morning,  and  the  care-taker 
showed  us  over  the  one-story  house.  In  one  of  the 
nine  rooms  is  displayed  three  hundred  bouquets  of 
immortelles  sent  to  Oom  Paul's  funeral.  A  few  of  the 
bouquets  were  made  of  solid  silver,  and  a  few  of  beads ; 
in  addition  to  these,  many  of  which  were  sent  by  kings 
and  princes,  three  hundred  bouquets  of  perishable 
flowers  were  sent.  Oom  Paul  (Uncle  Paul)  died  in 
Switzerland,  having  been  compelled  to  leave  his  coun- 
try during  the  war,  but  his  body  is  buried  in  Pretoria. 
Mrs.  Krueger  died  in  the  house  we  visited.  She  was 
a  plain  old  woman,  the  wife  of  a  farmer,  and  refused 
to  go  to  Holland  or  Switzerland  when  it  seemed  im- 
possible to  prevent  Pretoria  falling  into  the  hands  of 
the  British.  Not  only  Lord  Roberts,  but  Lord  Kitch- 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          273 

ener,  were  compelled  to  come  to  South  Africa  and  take 
personal  charge  of  the  campaign  against  the  Boers. 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Atterbury  saw  Lord  Roberts  ride  into 
Pretoria  at  the  head  of  his  troops.  Across  the  street 
from  Oom  Paul's  residence  is  the  church  where  he 
often  preached,  for  he  hated  the  devil  almost  as  much 
as  he  hated  the  English.  .  .  .  The  Boers  were  won- 
derful soldiers,  and,  being  in  their  own  country,  they  had 
a  great  advantage  over  the  English.  When  they  cap- 
tured English  prisoners,  they  didn't  know  what  to  do 
with  them,  so  turned  them  loose.  It  is  related  that  Gen- 
eral DeWett  captured  a  certain  English  regiment  three 
times,  and  this  fact  caused  that  particular  regiment  to 
be  known  as  "DeWett's  Own."  .  .  .  Pretoria  has 
65,000  people,  and  is  a  beautiful  city.  A  new  capitol 
building  is  approaching  completion,  at  a  cost,  every- 
thing counted,  of  nearly  ten  million  dollars.  It  is  an 
enormous  and  beautiful  structure  of  marble  and  granite, 
situated  on  a  hill  overlooking  the  city.  The  erection 
of  this  building  is  bitterly  resented  by  the  English  as  a 
useless  waste  of  money,  but  the  Boers  are  in  control 
of  the  government,  and  for  sentimental  reasons  insist 
upon  this  enormous  structure  at  Pretoria,  Oom  Paul's 
late  capital.  An  Englishman  told  me  lately  that  the 
Pretoria  capitol  will  cost  two-thirds  as  much  as  West- 
minster, the  seat  of  the  English  parliament.  .  .  . 
I  speak  of  Pretoria  as  the  capital  of  the  United  States 
of  South  Africa.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  only  the 
administrative  capital,  as  the  South-African  congress 
meets  at  Capetown,  while  the  South-African  supreme 
court  sits  at  Bloemfontein.  The  capital  is  thus  di- 
vided between  three  cities.  Our  Washington  is  the 


274  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

capital  of  one  hundred  million  people,  whereas  there  are 
only  eight  million  in  all  South  Africa:  one  million 
whites,  and  seven  million  colored.  The  United  States 
has  nearly  twice  as  many  negroes  as  South  Africa. 
.  .  .  I  am  told  that  the  average  negro  here  does  not 
pay  much  attention  to  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happi- 
ness ;  he  takes  whatever  is  offered  him  and  says  noth- 
ing, but  the  negroes  of  the  Basuto  tribe  are  disposed 
to  criticise  English  methods.  The  Basutos  are  well 
armed,  and  it  is  said  could  put  an  army  of  twenty  thou- 
sand horsemen  in  the  field  on  a  few  days'  notice.  It 
is  the  Basutos  who  are  expected  to  finally  make  the 
English  trouble,  and,  when  they  begin,  they  may  have 
the  assistance  of  many  other  negroes,  and  the  sympathy 
of  the  Boers.  .  .  .  When  the  Boers  of  the  Trans- 
vaal and  the  Orange  Free  State  fought  the  English,  it 
is  well  known  that  they  expected  the  assistance  of  the 
Cape  Colony  Dutch;  but  the  Cape  Colony  Dutch, 
who  are  very  numerous  and  very  rich,  got  cold  feet, 
and  failed  to  show  up  at  the  first  battle.  But  for  the 
promise  of  the  Cape  Colony  Dutch  to  join,  there  would 
have  been  no  Boer  war ;  and  had  they  joined,  the  war 
would  still  be  going  on.  .  .  .  On  our  way  to  Pre- 
toria, we  passed  a  big  camp  of  English  soldiers.  All 
English  soldiers  will  shortly  be  removed  from  South 
Africa,  the  country  being  so  peaceful  that  they  are  no 
longer  needed.  We  also  passed  over  one  of  the  battle- 
fields of  the  Boer  war,  which  is  now  a  peaceful  pasture 
devoted  to  cattle.  ...  A  son  of  Wm.  E.  Glad- 
stone is  governor-general  of  South  Africa,  and  lives  in 
Pretoria.  .  .  .  Pretoria  has  the  finest  zoological 
garden  in  South  Africa.  It  was  established  by  the 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          275 

Boers,  and  has  since  been  fostered  and  improved  by  the 
English.  It  contains  a  rhinoceros,  and  the  animal  is 
so  tame  that  the  children  feed  it.  But  how  viciously 
these  animals  charged  Colonel  Roosevelt  hi  his  articles 
in  Scribner's  Magazine!  .  .  .  The  zoo  is  not  only 
interesting  because  of  its  ra^e  animals,  but  is  located 
in  one  of  the  handsomest  flower  gardens  I  have  ever 
seen.  Next  door  is  a  museum  containing  many  South- 
African  curios.  .  .  .  At  2 :  30  in  the  afternoon  we 
left  Pretoria  in  a  drizzling  rain,  which  continued  all  the 
way  to  Johannesburg.  Owing  to  slippery  roads  and 
no  chains,  Flying  Bristow  did  not  reach  Johannesburg 
until  about  4  o'clock. 


SATURDAY,  MARCH  15. — This  evening  we  were  guests 
at  the  home  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Mark  Gary,  both  formerly 
of  California.  They  employ  four  native  servants,  all 
Zulus.  Seven  years  ago,  they  were  in  Durban  for  some 
time,  and  a  Zulu  boy  named  Abel  became  attached  to 
Mr.  Gary.  Soon  after  their  return  to  Johannesburg, 
there  was  a  knock  at  their  kitchen  door.  Mr.  Gary 
opened  the  door,  and  there  stood  Abel. 

"Your  Durban  boy  has  come  to  work  for  you,"  Abel 
said. 

And  he  has  been  with  the  Carys  ever  since,  as  cook. 
He  receives  $22  a  month,  having  become  an  expert. 
Abel  lives  with  the  other  servants  in  a  detached  house 
in  the  yard,  and  each  receives  the  following  rations : 
A  half-loaf  of  bread  per  day ;  one  can  condensed  milk 
per  week;  one-quarter  pound  of  tea  per  week;  two 


276  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

pounds  of  sugar  per  week;  two  pounds  of  corn-meal 
per  week;  fresh  meat  once  a  week.  This  meat  con- 
sists of  a  shilling's  worth  of  "boy's  meat,"  probably 
a  pound  and  a  half  of  beef,  which  is  boiled  with  vege- 
tables, usually  carrots,  which  the  Zulus  love.  The 
black  servants  here  are  known  as  "boys,"  and  the 
butchers  sell  a  special  kind  of  meat  for  them,  which  is 
called  "boy's  meat."  Mrs.  Gary  serves  out  the  ser- 
vants' rations  once  a  week,  and  her  grocer  puts  up  the 
tea  in  quarter-pound  packages,  the  sugar  in  two-pound 
packages,  etc.  The  food  is  cooked  in  Mrs.  Gary's 
kitchen,  but  eaten  in  the  detached  house  where  the 
servants  live.  .  .  .  While  we  were  at  the  dinner 
table  I  expressed  a  desire  to  see  Abel,  the  cook,  and 
Mrs.  Gary  sent  for  him  by  Sampson,  the  waiter.  Abel 
came,  bowing  and  smiling,  into  the  room,  remained  a 
few  moments,  and  then  disappeared  in  confusion.  He 
is  a  single  man,  about  thirty  years  old,  and  is  now  sav- 
ing up  his  money  to  get  married.  .  .  .  Sampson, 
the  waiter,  is  a  black  man  of  about  the  same  age,  and 
has  been  married  some  time.  He  gave  fifteen  cows  for 
his  wife.  She  lives  somewhere  in  Zululand,  and  Samp- 
son sees  her  only  once  a  year.  Among  the  Zulus,  a 
family  of  girls  is  valuable,  as  the  father  can  always 
sell  them  at  a  good  price.  Sampson  is  one- of  the  most 
capable  waiters  I  have  ever  seen  at  a  private  dinner,  or 
at  a  dinner  of  any  other  kind.  He  is  very  quiet  in  his 
movements,  and,  when  he  offers  anything  to  the  guests, 
he  stands  at  a  very  respectful  distance.  While  idle, 
and  standing  behind  his  mistress,  he  looks  so  respect- 
ful, and  so  concerned  about  the  dinner,  that  all  guests 
must  admire  him  as  much  as  I  did.  When  I  saw  him, 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRAL\A,  AND  AFRICA.          277 

he  wore  a  suit  of  white  duck,  made  in  American  fashion. 
In  addition  to  waiting  on  the  table,  Sampson  does  the 
washing  and  ironing,  and  assists  the  garden  boy  hi 
caring  for  the  flowers,  the  vegetables  and  the  chickens. 
At  the  usual  private  dinner,  you  observe  the  lady  of  the 
house  keeping  a  sharp  eye  on  the  waiter,  although  ap- 
parently engaging  freely  in  conversation,  but  Sampson 
was  so  capable  that  Mrs.  Gary  was  not  at  all  nervous. 
When  I  am  a  guest  at  a  private  dinner,  it  makes  me 
feel  more  natural  and  at  home  to  see  things  go  wrong 
occasionally,  but  Abel  and  Sampson  did  such  excellent 
team  work  that  there  was  not  the  slightest  friction  to 
comfort  me.  .  .  .  The  Gary  servants  are  kept 
busy  constantly,  and  they  will  cheerfully  work  until 
eleven  o'clock  at  night,  if  necessary.  They  are  en- 
titled to  a  vacation  of  ten  days  every  year,  but  Abel, 
the  cook,  has  been  away  but  once  in  six  years.  Every 
time  they  leave  the  house  they  must  have  a  pass,  cer- 
tifying that  they  are  good  boys,  regularly  employed, 
etc.  Every  negro  you  see  on  the  streets  of  Johannes- 
burg has  a  pass ;  otherwise  he  is  liable  to  arrest.  The 
blacks  pay  two  shillings  a  month  to  the  government 
for  this  pass  privilege,  and  when  a  white  man  employs 
a  new  servant  from  the  country,  he  must  have  him 
registered  at  the  office  of  the  police.  Mrs.  Gary  says 
her  negro  boys  particularly  dislike  nagging;  and  I 
think  this  is  a  characteristic  of  every  human  male, 
white,  black,  red  or  yellow,  that  ever  drew  the  breath 
of  life.  .  .  .  Mr.  Gary  has  hi  his  employ  a  negro 
man  who  has  six  wives.  This  man  works  in  Mr.  Gary's 
office  down-town,  but  lives  with  the  other  servants  at 
the  Gary  home.  He  says  he  often  whips  his  wives,  on 


278  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

general  principles.  He  cheerfully  takes  orders  from 
Mr.  Gary,  but  it  humiliates  him  to  take  orders  from 
Mrs.  Gary;  having  six  wives  of  his  own,  it  irritates 
him  to  be  ordered  around  by  a  woman.  .  .  .  Samp- 
son, the  waiter,  does  the  sweeping  and  scrubbing  in 
the  Gary  home,  but  the  beds  are  made  and  looked  after 
by  a  white  maid.  Mrs.  Gary  has  a  very  handsome 
flower  garden,  and  a  special  boy  is  regularly  employed 
to  look  after  it.  As  it  is  in  bloom  summer  and  winter, 
he  is  kept  very  busy,  even  with  the  occasional  assist- 
ance of  Sampson.  The  Carys  have  an  automobile, 
but  the  driver  is  a  white  man ;  blacks  are  not  allowed 
to  run  automobiles  here.  .  .  .  It  is  related  that 
the  negroes  were  once  greatly  excited  in  Johannesburg 
over  a  rumor  of  a  Kaffir  uprising.  One  woman  said 
to  her  black  boy : 

"You  wouldn't  kill  your  missus,  would  you?" 

"Oh,  no,"  the  boy  replied ;  "boy  next  door  kill  you, 
and  I  kill  his  missus." 

The  affair,  it  seemed,  had  all  been  arranged,  and 
very  delicately  at  that.  This  boy's  name  was  "Ma- 
chinery." The  blacks  take  any  name  they  hear  used 
among  the  whites,  and  "Machinery"  is  a  very  common 
name  in  Johannesburg.  ...  At  the  Gary  home, 
when  I  was  there,  domestic  ducks,  baked,,  were  a  part 
of  the  dinner.  A  considerable  quantity  was  left  after 
all  had  been  served. 

"Will  you  get  what  is  left  over?"  I  asked  Mrs.  Gary. 

"You  bet  I  will,"  she  laughingly  replied,  using  an 
American  expression  to  amuse  the  American  guests. 
With  our  black  servants  at  home,  they  always  get  what 
is  left  over  from  a  dinner,  but  in  a  South-African  home, 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.  279 

the  servants  get  only  what  is  served  out  to  them  at  the 
beginning  of  every  week.  .  .  .  Everywhere  in 
America,  women  believe  that  there  is  nothing  better 
for  a  salad  than  a  whole  tomato  on  lettuce  leaves,  and 
Durkee's  yellow  dressing  poured  over  the  tomato. 
Mrs.  Gary  had  it,  except  that  Abel  made  the  dressing. 
We  also  had  apple  pie,  and  Abel's  crust,  made  of  beef 
suet  and  butter,  would  have  done  credit  to  any  cook. 
.  .  Mrs.  Gary  says  that  when  she  announced  her 
engagement  to  a  man  hi  South  Africa,  all  her  friends 
inquired : 

"Is  he  a  missionary?" 

People  at  home  have  a  vague  notion  that  all  the 
whites  in  South  Africa  are  missionaries,  but  I  have  seen 
none,  and  heard  little  of  their  operations.  .  .  .  We 
went  to  the  Gary  home  in  a  rain-storm,  and  it  was  still 
raining  when  we  returned  to  the  hotel  at  10  o'clock  at 
night.  Four  years  ago,  rain  fell  here  forty-two  days 
and  nights,  according  to  citizens  of  Johannesburg. 
This,  it  seems  to  me,  breaks  the  record  by  two  days. 
The  ram  here  is  very  erratic,  and  usually  falls  at  the 
wrong  time.  The  rainfall  for  the  past  twenty  years 
has  averaged  twenty-six  inches,  but  the  rainfall  is  nine 
inches  short  this  season.  .  .  .  The  ram  continues 
at  Durban,  and  when  the  warship  "New  Zealand"  left 
for  Australia  late  this  afternoon,  there  was  a  down- 
pour of  ram,  and  the  crowd  on  the  docks  was  therefore 
small.  .  .  .  Four  years  ago,  on  the  17th  of  August, 
ten  inches  of  snow,  the  first  ever  seen  here,  fell  in  Jo- 
hannesburg, and  all  business  was  suspended  while  the 
people  engaged  in  snowballing. 


280  TRAVEL  LETTERS  PROM 

SUNDAY,  MARCH  16. — This  afternoon  I  attended  a 
baseball  game  in  Johannesburg ;  a  deciding  game  be- 
tween clubs  which  had  won  six  games  each.  The 
players  were  nearly  all  miners  from  California  and  Colo- 
rado. There  were  probably  seven  hundred  spectators 
present,  and  although  most  of  them  were  Americans, 
only  one  of  them  wore  an  American  hat.  I  was  the 
one  exception,  and  some  were  disposed  to  guy  that 
when  I  passed  in  front  of  the  grandstand.  The  hat 
generally  worn  by  the  men  here  is  a  fuzzy  affair  made 
in  London,  and  many  of  them  are  of  a  greenish  color. 
The  hat  can  be  wrapped  up  and  put  in  a  traveling-bag, 
and  is  generally  worn  with  the  brim  turned  down  all 
the  way  'round.  A  great  many  caps  are  also  worn. 
.  .  .  The  game  was  exactly  like  a  very  good  ama- 
teur game  in  the  United  States,  except  that  several 
of  the  players  were  elderly.  One  player,  a  doctor,  was 
as  old  and  fat  as  I  am,  and  I'm  in  no  condition  to  play 
baseball.  I  was  told  that  this  doctor  is  the  enthusiast 
who  keeps  the  game  going  in  Johannesburg.  Two  of 
the  grayheads  were  about  the  best  players  in  the  game ; 
one  of  them  was  a  man  named  Wilson,  and  he  was  a 
noted  base-stealer.  One  player  was  called  "Denver." 
"Come  to  life,  Denver,"  a  spectator  cried,  when  he 
went  to  bat,  and  "Denver"  didn't  do  a  tljing  but  smash 
the  ball  on  the  nose  for  a  home  run.  Another  player 
was  called  "C.  C.,"  and  I  found  that  his  nickname  was 
"Cripple  Creek,"  the  name  of  the  American  mining 
camp  he  came  from.  One  of  the  pitchers  was  called 
"Texas,"  and  he  won  the  game,  6  to  4.  American 
baseball  slang  was  constantly  coming  from  the  specta- 
tors, and  I  could  have  easily  imagined  myself  in  an 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.  281 

American  town  had  the  men  present  worn  different 
hats.  I  looked  over  the  audience  a  good  many  times, 
and  it  seemed  that  every  man  present  had  in  some  way 
lost  a  little  of  his  American  identity.  In  the  chaffing 
from  the  grandstand,  English  pronunciations  could  be 
detected,  though  every  man  around  me  was  probably 
an  American.  .  .  .  An  unusual  feature  of  the 
game  was  that  almost  no  boys  were  present.  When  a 
foul  went  over  the  fence,  some  one  would  remark: 
"Another  boy  in,"  but  the  only  baseball  enthusiasts 
here  are  grown  men  who  have  played  the  game,  or  seen 
fine  exhibitions  of  it,  in  the  United  States.  No  ad- 
mission was  charged,  but  a  man  took  up  a  collection 
to  pay  expenses,  just  as  is  done  at  games  in  the  smaller 

country  towns  of  the  United  States We 

ate  lunch  today  with  an  American  family,  and  they  told 
us  that  the  most  famous  girls'  school  in  South  Africa 
is  at  Wellington,  Cape  Colony.  It  is  run  by  two  Amer- 
ican women,  and  most  of  the  better  class  girls  in  South 
Africa  are  educated  there.  All  the  teachers  are  Ameri- 
can women,  and  the  result  is  that  all  the  students  ac- 
quire many  American  ways,  habits  and  pronunciations. 
It  is  generally  said  here  that  this  Wellington  school  is 
doing  more  to  Americanize  South  Africa  than  any  other 
single  influence.  .  .  .  American  life  insurance  men 
stand  very  high  all  over  the  world.  A  South- African 
life  insurance  man  told  me  today  that  every  new  fea- 
ture of  foreign  companies  is  borrowed  from  America. 
.  .  .  Possibly  you  will  remember  that  years  ago, 
Prince  Napoleon,  a  son  of  the  Empress  Eugenie,  was 
killed  by  savages.  This  occurred  in  Natal,  of  which 
Durban  is  the  seaport.  The  young  prince  came  out 


282  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

here  with  an  English  regiment,  in  a  spirit  of  adventure. 
The  Zulus  cut  this  regiment  to  pieces;  the  catastro- 
phe was  almost  as  complete  as  was  the  Custer  massa- 
cre on  the  Little  Big  Horn  river,  in  Montana,  in  1876. 
.  .  .  The  original  Dutch  who  settled  in  South  Africa 
were  the  same  sort  of  people  who  settled  in  New  York, 
and  called  the  place  New  Amsterdam.  The  settlement 
of  the  Dutch  in  Cape  Colony  and  in  New  York  oc- 
curred at  about  the  same  time.  .  .  .  The  word 
"Boer"  means  farmer,  but  it  is  applied  to  all  descend- 
ants of  the  old  Dutch  stock.  .  .  .  American  resi- 
dents here  greatly  regret  the  exaggerated  scandals  con- 
stantly appearing  in  American  papers.  In  America, 
a  decent  man  is  often  abused  unjustly  and  untruth- 
fully, whereas  hi  England  the  great  scandals  with  plenty 
of  foundation,  are  usually  hushed  up.  The  newspapers 
and  magazines  of  England  and  its  colonies  are  not  as 
independent  as  the  American  press,  and  more  generally 
owned  by  "the  interests."  This  statement  will,  I  be- 
lieve, be  generally  admitted  by  the  English.  The 
American  press  is  not  only  free;  it  often  carries  free- 
dom too  far,  and  prints  unjust  and  untruthful  criti- 
cisms. These  publications  are  read  by  Englishmen, 
and  Americans  living  abroad  never  hear  the  last  of 
them.  .  .  .  The  tea  habit  being  general  in  the 
English  colonies,  there  are  a  great  many  tea-rooms. 
One  was  raided  hi  Johannesburg  last  night,  and.  a  large 
number  of  arrests  made.  Think  of  a  tea-room  being 
raided  by  the  police!  .  .  .  But  here  is  something 
still  more  unusual :  An  Episcopal  rector  hi  Capetown 
attempted  to  introduce  High  Mass  into  his  services, 
and  the  controversy  has  reached  the  newspapers.  The 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          283 

vestrymen  are  against  High  Mass,  but  the  pastor  stands 
firm,  and  says  he  is  within  his  rights. 


MONDAY,  MARCH  17. — We  have  spent  this  day  in  the 
old  Dutch  town  of  Bloemfontein,  capital  of  the  Orange 
Free  State  in  the  days  before  the  Boer  war.  It  has 
thirty  thousand  inhabitants,  a  little  more  than  half  of 
them  negroes.  Polly's  Hotel  Cecil,  where  we  are  stay- 
ing, is  very  comfortable,  and  the  price  is  only  $3  a  day. 
I  came  to  the  Hotel  Cecil  on  the  recommendation  of  a 
Boer  lawyer  I  met  on  the  train.  He  lives  somewhere 
in  the  interior,  and  is  here  to  attend  a  sitting  of  the  su- 
preme court.  The  lawyer  is  the  first  Boer  I  have  be- 
come acquainted  with ;  he  was  a  Boer  soldier  during 
the  war,  and,  being  taken  prisoner,  was  sent  to  India, 
where  he  remained  eighteen  months.  The  Orange  Free 
State  had  no  grievance  against  the  English,  but  went 
to  war  because  it  had  a  defensive  alliance  with  the 
Transvaal.  Although  Oom  Paul  is  a  famous  figure  in 
history,  he  was  quarrelsome  and  unreasonable;  he 
made  many  demands  of  the  English  that  a  proud  peo- 
ple could  not  decently  grant.  But  when  the  war  be- 
gan, the  Orange  Free  State  became  the  centre  of  hostil- 
ities, and  all  the  men  between  the  ages  of  seventeen  and 
seventy  were  drafted.  The  English  couldn't  afford  to 
lose,  and  they  burned  houses  and  destroyed  fields  as 
ruthlessly  as  did  Sheridan  in  the  Shenandoah  valley. 
It  was  a  terrible  affair,  but  Oom  Paul,  with  his  excess 
of  piety  and  patriotism,  undoubtedly  dragged  an  un- 
willing people  to  the  slaughter.  President  Steyn  was 


284  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

not  as  well  known  as  President  Krueger,  but  he  was 
a  better  man,  and  better  balanced.  Steyn,  who  is 
still  living  here,  but  in  ill-health,  is  a  highly  educated 
man,  whereas  Krueger  could  barely  write  his  own  name. 
.  .  .  Owing  to  Easter,  the  railroads  are  now  selling 
tickets  at  half-fare,  so  that  we  traveled  here  for  two 
cents  a  mile  each.  This  is  the  regular  fare  in  Kansas, 
where  we  are  not  blessed,  or  cursed,  with  government- 
owned  railways.  .  .  .  The  Orange  Free  State,  for- 
merly a  republic,  is  now  a  state  in  the  South-African 
union.  It  has  seventeen  members  of  parliament,  and 
sixteen  of  them  are  Boers.  The  seventeenth  is  a  Boer, 
but  a  supporter  of  all  English  measures.  Some  of  the 
sixteen  Boer  members  are  sons  of  English  fathers,  so 
that  it  will  be  seen  that  politics  makes  strange  bedfel- 
lows in  South  Africa,  too.  ...  A  Boer  farmer 
does  not  pay  his  negro  farm  hand  to  exceed  $2.50  a 
month.  In  addition,  the  farm  hand  receives  enough 
corn-meal  to  keep  him,  and  such  other  food  as  he  can 
pick  up.  Corn-meal  is  the  staple  food  on  the  farms 
here,  for  Boers  as  well  as  negroes.  The  Boers  are  al- 
ways expressing  indignation  because  the  English  are 
spoiling  the  negroes  by  paying  them  big  wages.  The 
Englishman  who  drove  us  about  this  morning  in  a  Ford 
automobile,  at  $2.50  an  hour,  pays  a  negro  man  $10 
a  month,  and  the  negro  boards  himself.  Such  liberality 
as  this  greatly  irritates  the  Boers.  And  this  town  negro 
has  almost  nothing  to  do ;  he  only  cares  for  six  horses, 
two  carriages  and  an  automobile.  The  Englishman 
who  drove  the  automobile  talked  all  the  time,  and  his 
talk  was  mainly  abuse  of  the  Boers.  ...  I  have 
frequently  remarked  that  the  English  are  very  unre- 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          285 

liable  in  their  pronunciations.  Some  of  them  refer  to 
a  horse  as  a  'orse,  while  others  pronounce  the  word  as 
we  do.  In  London,  there  is  a  famous  place,  the  Hotel 
Cecil.  It  is  universally  called  the  Hotel  Sessil  in  Lon- 
don, but  in  Bloemfontein,  the  capital  of  an  English 
colony,  there  is  a  hotel  of  the  same  name,  and  it  is  called 
Hotel  Cecil ;  the  word  pronounced  as  it  is  spelled. 
.  .  .  I  don't  know  how  it  is  generally,  but  on  Mon- 
day, March  17,  1913,  Bloemfontein,  Orange  Free  State, 
South  Africa,  was  the  dullest  town  I  have  ever  visited. 
The  handsome  stores  were  empty,  and  I  wondered  that 
the  merchants  did  not  close  up.  In  dull  towns,  pretty 
women  are  always  numerous,  and  we  saw  more  pretty 
women  in  Bloemfontein  than  in  any  other  town  in 
South  Africa.  ...  I  believe  I  have  frequently  re- 
marked in  these  letters  that  South  Africa  is  the  laziest 
country  in  the  world  for  white  people.  Today  I  saw 
a  negro  driving  a  public  carriage.  Beside  him  sat  a 
white  man,  who  collected  the  fares,  and  managed 
things ;  but  the  white  man  would  not  consent  to  do  the 
actual  work  of  driving.  When  a  white  mechanic  ac- 
cepts a  job  here,  he  asks,  "Where  are  the  boys?" 
meaning,  "Where  are  the  negroes  to  do  the  work  under 
my  direction?"  The  labor  problem  has  solved  itself 
in  South  Africa.  When  a  tolerably  good  man  will  work 
for  thirty-seven  cents  a  day,  and  board  himself,  an  em- 
ployer really  has  no  room  for  complaint.  ...  In 
Bloemfontein,  negro  women  are  employed  as  chamber- 
maids at  our  hotel ;  elsewhere  we  have  seen  only  cham- 
ber-men, who  worked  under  the  direction  of  white 
maids.  The  negro  men  are  more  industrious  in  South 
Africa  than  the  women,  now  that  they  are  civilized,  but 


286  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

in  the  old  days  of  savagery,  the  women  did  most  of 
the  work.  .  .  .  Near  Bloemfontein  is  a  fort  large 
enough  to  accommodate  four  thousand  English  soldiers, 
but  the  place  is  almost  deserted;  England  no  longer 
fears  war  in  South  Africa.  .  .  .  The  window  in 
my  room  looks  into  an  open-air  theatre;  I  can  see 
everything  that  goes  on  on  the  stage,  and  hear  every- 
thing that  is  said.  I  went  to  bed  tonight  before  the 
show  was  half  over.  Educational  films  of  great  value 
may  be  had,  but  manufacturers  of  films  say  the  people 
prefer  the  foolish  melodramas  with  which  you  are  all 
familiar  in  connection  with  moving-picture  shows. 
Sometimes  I  fear  that  the  general  run  of  the  people  have 
wretchedly  poor  taste.  The  main  show  tonight  was 
built  around  a  woman  tight-rope  walker.  This  woman 
was  a  society  queen,  but  her  father  met  with  reverses, 
and  she  became  a  tight-rope  walker  in  a  circus,  re- 
fusing to  marry  a  high-born  and  wealthy  lover  because 
of  the  change  in  her  fortunes.  The  high-born  and 
wealthy  lover  was  entrusted  with  an  important  mis- 
sion ;  to  carry  certain  valuable  papers,  and  a  girl  clerk 
of  an  opposition  concern  was  employed  to  follow  him 
and  secure  the  papers.  The  girl  clerk  fell  in  love  with 
the  man,  and  refused  to  rob  him,  but  became  a  fury 
when  he  met  his  former  sweetheart,  the  tight-rope 
walker,  in  a  circus.  The  girl  clerk  caused  the  high- 
born man  to  be  kidnapped,  and  locked  in  a  top  room 
in  a  fourteen-story  building,  but  the  tight-rope  walker 
rescued  him  by  rigging  up  a  rope  to  the  building  oppo- 
site, and  carrying  him  on  her  back.  It  was  an  idiotic 
performance  an  hour  and  a  half  long,  but  the  people 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          287 

in  the  audience  greatly  enjoyed  it.  ...  My  friend, 
the  Boer  lawyer,  says  the  Orange  Free  State  is  much 
more  prosperous  now  than  before  the  war,  although 
for  two  years  afterwards  it  seemed  hopelessly  wrecked. 
But  the  British  government  loaned  the  people  money, 
and  they  soon  recovered.  The  Boer  lawyer  made  an- 
other statement  that  surprised  me ;  he  said  that  taxes 
are  lower  now  than  when  the  Orange  Free  State  was  a 
republic,  and  that  every  citizen  has  as  many  liberties 
as  he  had  then,  and  more  opportunities  to  prosper. 
This  is  rather  an  unusual  statement  for  a  captured 
subject  of  a  republic  to  make  about  a  government 
headed  by  a  king.  ...  I  never  knew  until  the 
Boer  lawyer  told  me  that  a  good  many  Boers — possibly 
forty — have  been  given  titles  by  the  English  king. 
The  chief  justice  of  the  South- African  supreme  court, 
which  meets  at  Bloemfontein,  is  a  "Lord,"  and  there 
are  many  inferior  titles,  such  as  "Sir."  .  .  .  The 
negroes  of  Bloemfontein  are  compelled  to  live  in  what 
the  English  call  "locations;"  that  is,  in  villages  where 
there  are  no  whites.  We  visited  one  of  these  today, 
and  found  the  blacks  had  all  kinds  of  shops,  restaurants, 
hotels,  etc.  In  front  of  one  of  the  grocery  stores  was 
about  the  biggest  pile  of  watermelons  I  have  ever  seen. 
.  .  .  The  vegetable  market  of  Bloemfontein  is  in 
the  public  square  of  the  town,  and  the  vegetables  are 
hauled  in  with  ox  teams.  Negro  women  pick  up  the 
droppings  of  the  cattle,  and  take  the  stuff  home  in 
baskets  and  pans  carried  on  their  heads.  Reaching 
home,  they  plaster  it  against  the  sides  of  their  houses 
to  dry,  and  afterwards  use  it  for  fuel.  Every  negro 


288  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

woman  I  saw  engaged  in  this  unusual  occupation  car- 
ried a  baby  on  her  back.  The  negroes  breed  like  rab- 
bits, but  the  infant  mortality  among  them  is  large. 


TUESDAY,  MARCH  18. — This  morning  at  9  o'clock 
we  left  Bloemfontein  by  tram  for  Kimberley.  The 
hotel  porter  carried  our  baggage  into  a  compartment 
for  four,  and  said : 

"You  are  to  have  this  to  yourselves  all  day.  I  have 
arranged  it." 

I  thought  it  was  simply  the  talk  of  a  somewhat  fresh 
but  obliging  hotel  porter;  but  he  didn't  do  a  thing 
but  deliver  the  goods.  And,  what  is  more,  the  train 
conductor  frequently  came  into  our  compartment,  and 
pointed  out  the  sights  of  interest.  ...  I  have 
known  railroad  men  all  my  life,  and  been  familiar  with 
their  practice  of  buying  butter  and  eggs  on  the  line, 
where  they  are  cheaper,  and  carrying  them  home. 
The  railroad  men  of  South  Africa  do  the  same  thing ; 
the  conductor  told  me  that  he  buys  eggs  along  the  line 
at  thirty  cents  a  dozen  when  they  are  frequently  75 
cents  at  the  division  point  where  he  lives.  He  also 
buys  his  meat  out  in  the  country;  a  dressed  sheep 
weighing  eighty  pounds  costs  him  $4.80,  so  that  he 
gets  his  meat  at  six  cents  a  pound.  Sometimes  pota- 
toes sell  in  South  Africa  at  $11.50  for  a  sack  of  165 
pounds,  and  poor  people  pay  three  cents  for  every 
potato  they  buy  in  small  quantities.  On  this  run  the 
conductor  makes  a  round  trip  of  210  miles  a  day,  which 
occupies  him  eleven  hours.  He  says  he  earns  about 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.  289 

$120  a  month,  but  in  order  to  do  this,  he  is  compelled 
to  get  in  forty  days  in  a  month.  The  engineer  makes 
$5  for  a  day's  work  of  eleven  hours.  ...  On  the 
way  we  passed  a  flock  of  thirty  or  forty  ostriches  graz- 
ing in  a  field,  like  cattle,  but  this  isn't  considered  a  very 
good  ostrich  country.  We  also  passed  through  the 
Paardeburg  battle-field,  on  the  Modder  river,  where 
General  Cronje  surrendered  4,000  men  to  a  superior 
force  of  British.  There  are  two  cemeteries  on  the  field, 
in  which  are  buried  the  English  and  Boer  soldiers  who 
were  killed  in  the  battle.  The  Modder  river  battle- 
field does  not  look  unlike  the  Custer  battle-field  on  the 
Little  Big  Horn  river  in  Montana.  Indeed,  the  coun- 
try between  Bloemfontein  and  Kimberley  does  not 
look  unlike  the  dry  country  in  Montana.  .  .  .  We 
saw  almost  no  cultivated  fields  on  the  way,  but  a  great 
many  cattle,  and  a  few  sheep.  There  is  not  a  town 
between  Bloemfontein  and  Kimberley :  it  is  a  frontier 
country,  and  the  railroad  has  been  in  operation  only 
four  or  five  years.  A  man  I  met  on  the  tram  says  that 
in  his  section  of  the  Orange  Free  State  the  soil  is  black 
and  rich,  and  that  fine  crops  of  corn  are  raised;  but 
I  have  seen  no  such  country.  He  lives  in  a  country 
town  of  800  people,  off  the  railroad,  and  says  he  pays 
only  fourteen  cents  a  pound  for  the  best  beef,  while 
butter  sells  at  24  cents,  and  eggs  at  from  18  to  30  cents. 
In  his  country,  the  Boer  women  do  their  own  cooking, 
but  hire  negroes  to  wait  on  them,  and  do  the  rough  work. 
An  ordinary  negro  house  servant  receives  $4  a  month ; 
a  particularly  good  one,  $1.25  per  week.  .  .  .  Kim- 
berley, as  you  approach  it  by  railroad,  looks  like  Jo- 
hannesburg, though  it  is  much  smaller.  You  see  the 


290  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

same  mountains  around  the  mines,  but  at  Kimberley 
the  mountains  are  composed  of  blue  mud  that  has  been 
taken  from  the  mines,  washed  for  diamonds,  and  then 
piled  up  in  waste  heaps.  The  country  is  not  unlike 
that  around  Johannesburg :  large  hills  in  every  direc- 
tion, and  a  rolling  desolate  country  between  them. 
Kimberley  has  warmer  weather  than  Johannesburg, 
and  we  struck  it  on  a  tremendously  hot  day.  .  .  . 
The  first  thing  you  notice  at  Kimberley  is  the  great 
number  of  mulattoes,  whereas  there  are  almost  none 
at  Johannesburg  or  Durban.  ...  I  was  told  at 
Johannesburg  that  the  hotels  at  Kimberley  were  abom- 
inable ;  they  were  so  generally  abused  that  I  hoped  to 
find  them  better  than  their  reputation,  but  the  Royal 
Palace,  which  I  was  told  was  the  best,  is  the  worst  ho- 
tel I  have  ever  patronized.  And  in  an  advertisement, 
I  read  that  the  Royal  Palace  was  the  " Hotel  de  luxe" 
of  Kimberley.  I  am  writing  this  in  my  room  by  the 
light  of  a  tallow  candle,  as  the  electric  light  refuses  to 
work.  The  hall  servants  (negro  women)  are  the  most 
slovenly  creatures  I  have  ever  seen,  and  there  does  not 
seem  to  be  any  head  to  the  place ;  I  don't  know  who 
runs  it,  but  whoever  he  is,  he  doesn't  give  much  time 
to  his  job.  .  .  .  There  are  probably  a  half-dozen 
really  excellent  hotels  at  Bloemfontein ;  some  of  them 
only  half  patronized.  Will  some  one  please  tell  me 
why  one  of  the  good  hotels  at  Bloemfontein,  an  in- 
significant country  town,  was  not  built  at  busy,  hustling, 
prosperous  Kimberley?  ....  Johannesburg  is  a 
modern,  beautiful  city ;  Kimberley  is  a  mining  camp, 
with  narrow,  irregular  streets.  It  has  many  good  shops, 
but  many  of  the  people  said  to  me : 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          291 

"  No  one  lives  in  Kimberley  because  he  likes  the  town ; 
we  only  remain  here  to  make  money." 

Johannesburg  people  are  proud  of  their  town,  and 
they  have  reason  to  be,  but  Kimberley  people  are  al- 
ways apologetic.  The  population  is  thirty  thousand, 
a  large  number  of  the  inhabitants  being  negroes  and 
Hindus.  The  rich  mine-owners  have  race-tracks,  clubs 
and  resorts,  but  cannot  be  very  comfortable,  owing  to 
the  dust  and  the  heat.  The  few  Americans  I  have  seen 
here  are  tanned  until  they  are  as  brown  as  Indians,  and 
they  do  not  say  much  in  praise  of  the  town  except  that 
it  is  the  greatest  diamond  camp  in  existence. 


WEDNESDAY,  MARCH  19. — The  De  Beers  Company 
represents  one  of  the  greatest  corporations  in  the  world. 
You  hear  of  De  Beers  in  every  conversation  when  in 
Kimberley.  De  Beers  owns  private  cars  for  use  on 
the  railways ;  De  Beers  gives  millions  to  public  enter- 
prises, and  to  the  government ;  De  Beers  owns  parks, 
hotels,  street  railways,  and  eight  of  the  greatest  dia- 
mond mines  in  the  world.  .  .  .  De  Beers  was  a 
Dutch  farmer  on  whose  land  diamonds  were  found. 
He  never  made  much  out  of  the  discovery,  and  has 
been  dead  a  good  many  years,  but,  like  our  John  Brown, 
his  soul  goes  marching  on.  Cecil  Rhodes  and  Alfred 
Beit  were  the  real  geniuses  of  Kimberley  and  its  dia- 
mond fields,  and  they  are  represented  in  monuments 
here,  but  De  Beers  is  heard  of  much  more  frequently 
because  his  name  was  given  to  the  trust  which  took  over 
the  mines.  .  .  .  Diamonds  were  originally  dis- 


292  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

covered  in  South  Africa  in  1867,  by  some  Dutch  chil- 
dren playing  on  the  Orange  river.  Three  years  later, 
the  great  Kimberley  deposit  was  found,  and  now  the 
output  is  twenty-seven  million  dollars  a  year.  It  is 
a  saying  around  Kimberley  that  if  the  De  Beers  com- 
pany should  put  on  the  market  all  the  diamonds  it 
has  on  hand  and  could  produce,  diamonds  would  sell 
at  a  shilling  a  gallon,  but  the  De  Beers  company  only 
sells  as  many  as  it  can  get  a  good  price  for.  Diamond- 
mining,  according  to  experts,  will  continue  at  Kimberley 
for  at  least  a  hundred  years ;  it  has  not  been  thought 
necessary  to  make  figures  beyond  that  time.  South 
Africa  produces  ninety-five  per  cent  of  the  diamonds 
of  the  world,  and  the  De  Beers  company  is  the  principal 
factor  in  the  diamond-production  of  South  Africa. 
The  De  Beers  company  does  not  represent  the  De  Beers 
family,  but  many  noted  English  and  French  capitalists, 
with  a  sprinkling  of  Americans;  the  diamond  trust 
is  one  great  trust  in  which  Americans  have  little  inter- 
est. .  .  .  Originally,  the  diamond  mines  at  Kim- 
berley were  divided  into  thousands  of  claims,  31x31 
feet,  but  Cecil  Rhodes  saw  that  diamonds  would  soon 
become  very  cheap  unless  conditions  were  changed; 
so  by  hook  and  by  crook  he  formed  the  great  De  Beers 
trust,  which  now  produces  only  as  many  diamonds 
as  the  world  will  pay  high  prices  for.  Prosperous 
America  takes  the  greater  part  of  the  output,  and  dull 
times  in  America  means  dull  times  in  Kimberley. 
Alpheus  Williams,  an  American,  is  general  manager 
of  the  De  Beers  company,  and  many  of  the  officials 
under  him  are  Americans.  There  are  other  diamond 
mines  in  South  Africa,  including  alluvial  diggings,  and 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          293 

the  Premier  mine  near  Pretoria,  where  was  found  the 
great  Cullinan  diamond,  which  weighed,  before  cutting, 
3,025  carats,  or  a  pound  and  a  quarter.  But  Kimber- 
ley  is  the  centre,  and  will  remain  so,  unless  other  dis- 
coveries are  made.  At  the  end  of  1908,  it  was  esti- 
mated that  eleven  tons  of  diamonds,  valued  at  $350,- 
000,000,  had  been  found  at  Kimberley.  Diamonds 
weighing  over  an  ounce  are  not  infrequent ;  the  largest 
found  at  Kimberley  weighed  over  four  ounces.  .  .  . 
Before  the  passage  of  the  Diamond  Trade  Act,  thefts 
amounted  to  five  million  dollars  a  year,  but  the  De 
Beers  company  regulated  stealing  as  well  as  output, 
and  the  losses  are  now  insignificant.  .  .  .  The 
finest  diamond-cutting  is  lately  being  done  in  New  York, 
and  not  in  Amsterdam,  as  formerly.  The  diamonds 
cut  in  New  York  show  more  fire  than  diamonds  cut 
in  Amsterdam ;  they  have  a  greater  number  of  facets, 
and  represent  finer  and  better  work.  Cutting  adds 
forty  per  cent  to  the  value  of  diamonds,  and  an  attempt 
is  being  made  to  put  a  tax  of  20  per  cent  on  all  uncut 
diamonds  sent  out  of  South  Africa.  No  cutting  is 
done  here,  and  the  passage  of  such  a  law  would  add 
enormously  to  the  country's  labor  roll.  .  .  .  The 
average  man,  in  thinking  of  a  diamond  mine  at  Kim- 
berley, imagines  a  great  open  hole  in  the  earth,  and 
thousands  of  men  working  at  the  bottom  of  it.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  no  such  mining  is  now  done  in  Kimber- 
ley, although  visitors  may  see  great  holes  in  which 
such  mining  was  formerly  carried  on.  Diamonds  are 
now  mined  very  much  as  gold  is  mined.  Shafts  are 
sunk  to  great  depths  in  the  earth,  and  drifts  run  in 
every  direction  from  the  bottom.  Some  of  these  shafts 


294  TRAVEL  LETTERS   FROM 

are  more  than  three  thousand  feet  deep,  and  the  dia- 
mond dirt  is  hoisted  and  treated  very  much  as  gold- 
bearing  rock  is  hoisted  and  treated.  .  .  .  Dia- 
monds are  found  in  blue  dirt,  in  what  the  miners  call 
"pipes."  These  pipes  are  the  craters  of  extinct  vol- 
canoes, and  taper  toward  the  bottom  like  a  funnel. 
The  pipes  are  round,  as  may  be  seen  in  the  old  open 
workings,  some  of  which  are  a  thousand  feet  deep.  The 
deepest  working  in  any  "pipe"  is  now  at  a  depth  of 
three  thousand  feet,  but  a  diamond  drill  has  been  sent 
down  a  thousand  feet  further  without  the  blue  dirt 
giving  out;  so  no  one  knows  how  deep  they  are. 
.  .  .  The  old  open  holes  in  the  ground  were  found 
very  expensive  to  work  at  a  depth  of  eight  hundred 
or  a  thousand  feet,  so  the  blue  dirt  is  now  hoisted  by 
means  of  modern  cages  operating  in  timbered  shafts, 
as  coal  is  hoisted ;  down  below,  drifts  are  run,  and  the 
blue  dirt  hauled  to  the  hoisting-shafts  as  is  done  in 
coal-mining.  As  the  blue  dirt  is  exhausted,  the  shafts 
are  sunk  deeper,  and  drifts  run  lower  down.  The 
"pipe"  at  the  biggest  diamond  mine  at  Kimberley  is 
three  hundred  yards  across  at  the  top,  and,  as  I  have 
already  said,  this  tapers  toward  the  bottom  like  the 
funnel  you  use  in  pouring  vinegar  into  a  jug.  The 
Premier  mine,  near  Pretoria,  is  very  much'  larger  than 
any  mine  at  Kimberley,  being  eight  hundred  yards 
across  at  the  top.  This  great  Premier  mine,  which  you 
hear  little  of,  mines  forty  thousand  tons  of  blue  dirt 
per  day,  and  employs  twelve  thousand  men,  as  against 
twenty  thousand  employed  in  all  the  Kimberley  mines. 
The  Premier  dirt,  however,  is  worth  only  one  dollar 
per  ton,  whereas  that  at  Kimberley  averages  something 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          295 

like  three  times  as  much.  .  .  .  Briefly,  the  process 
of  finding  the  diamonds  is  as  follows :  The  blue  dirt  in 
which  the  diamonds  are  found  is  brought  to  the  sur- 
face precisely  as  coal  is  hoisted,  and  mined  in  about 
the  same  way.  It  is  then  placed  in  little  iron  cars,  and 
hauled  to  a  level  field,  where  it  is  spread  over  the  sur- 
face to  a  depth  of  two  feet.  This  is  done  to  permit 
the  weather  to  disintegrate  the  dirt,  and  render  its 
washing  easier.  Today  I  saw  a  field  of  four  thousand 
acres  covered  with  this  blue  dirt.  It  will  remain  out 
in  the  weather  a  year  before  it  is  treated  in  the  washing- 
mills.  .  .  .  You  might  pause  a  moment  and  think 
of  that  four-thousand-acre  field,  covered  to  a  depth  of 
two  feet  with  the  blue  dirt  in  which  diamonds  are  found. 
The  four-thousand-acre  field  I  saw  represented  the  out- 
put of  only  one  mine ;  there  are  eight  in  the  Kimberley 
district,  only  two  of  which  are  known  to  be  duffers,  as 
they  say  here;  that  is,  of  little  value.  .  .  .  And 
you  may  rest  assured  that  this  four-thousand-acre  field 
is  carefully  guarded;  it  is  surrounded  with  a  barbed 
wire  fence  fourteen  feet  high,  and  on  top  of  the  fence 
are  four  wires  spread  out  in  such  a  way  that  no  one  could 
possibly  climb  over.  At  night,  the  fence  is  illuminated 
with  electric  lights,  and  there  is  a  patrol  of  armed 
guards  day  and  night.  But  you  might  be  turned  loose 
in  the  four-thousand-acre  field,  and  not  find  a  diamond 
in  a  year ;  the  process  of  finding  them  is  very  intricate, 
expensive,  and  difficult.  Many  of  the  natives  who  work 
in  the  diamond  mines  have  never  seen  a  diamond :  they 
see  only  the  blue  dirt.  .  .  .  After  the  blue  dirt  has 
lain  out  in  the  weather  a  year,  and  been  plowed  up  at 
intervals  with  steam  plows,  that  all  portions  of  it  may 


296  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

have  a  chance  at  the  sun,  it  is  washed  in  enormous  mills, 
and  reduced  in  the  proportion  of  one  to  four  million : 
that  is,  for  every  pound  of  diamonds  found,  four  mill- 
ion pounds  of  blue  dirt  are  mined,  hoisted,  exposed  in 
the  field  a  year,  and  then  run  through  the  washing-mills. 
.  .  .  In  these  washing-mills,  the  blue  dirt  is  first 
crushed  between  rollers,  and  then  run  through  shaking 
washing-pans  three  different  times.  What  is  left  is  then 
taken  in  cars  to  another  mill,  called  the  pulsator,  and 
here  the  precious  dirt  is  again  washed  three  times. 
Finally  the  diamonds  and  the  heavier  pebbles  remain- 
ing after  six  washings,  go  in  a  stream  of  water  over  a 
shaking-pan,  the  bottom  of  which  is  covered  with  vas- 
eline. The  diamonds  stick  to  the  vaseline,  for  some 
reason  yet  unexplained,  while  the  pebbles  roll  away 
with  the  water.  The  diamonds  on  the  screen  are  then 
easily  collected  and  sorted.  Some  of  the  sorters, 
greatly  to  my  surprise,  were  negroes  in  charge  of  white 
men.  .  .  .  Today  I  saw  the  result  of  one  day's 
washing  from  one  mine;  a  pile  of  rough  diamonds, 
many  of  them  as  small  as  pin-heads.  One  of  them  was 
said  to  be  worth  a  thousand  dollars.  Dozens  were  of 
fairly  good  size,  but  the  bulk  of  them  were  very  small. 
These  small  diamonds  will  be  used  in  cutting  the  big 
ones.  There  were  many  straw-colored  diamonds,  and 
some  of  them  were  black ;  the  black  ones  will  be  used 
in  diamond  drills.  It  seemed  to  me  that  there  were 
half  a  pint  of  these  diamonds ;  Adelaide  says  a  pint. 
But  anyway,  three  or  four  thousand  men,  aided  by  the 
most  enormous  machines  I  have  ever  seen,  work  a  day, 
and  turn  out — what?  A  half-pint  or  pint  of  bright 
stones  of  no  actual  value  except  in  cutting  glass  and 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          297 

in  diamond  drills.  The  diamonds  when  found  are 
in  all  sorts  of  shapes,  but  some  of  them  look  somewhat 
like  diamonds  after  they  have  been  cut.  When  taken 
out  of  the  washing-machines  they  look  like  ordinary 
rock  crystals ;  but  they  do  not  flash  or  sparkle.  Cut- 
ting gives  them  that  quality.  The  De  Beers  company 
last  year  made  ten  million  dollars  profit,  I  am  told, 
and  I  am  also  told  that  one  gold  mine  at  Johannesburg 
last  year  made  half  that  amount.  .  .  .  The  min- 
ing of  the  blue  dirt  is  done  by  natives  who  live  in  com- 
pounds, or  quarters,  and  who  are  never  permitted  to 
leave  the  place  until  they  quit,  or  are  discharged ;  but 
no  native  is  employed  who  will  not  agree  to  work  at 
least  four  months.  Today  I  visited  one  of  these  com- 
pounds, occupied  by  2,500  natives.  The  place  looked 
to  be  a  thousand  feet  square.  In  the  centre  is  a  place 
where  the  men  bathe  after  coming  from  underground. 
The  houses  where  the  men  sleep  form  the  square,  and 
thirty  men  are  provided  with  sleeping-bunks  in  one 
room.  The  bunks  are  in  tiers,  three  deep,  and  re- 
minded me  of  my  quarters  on  the  ship  "Maunganui" 
between  Wellington  and  Sydney.  ...  In  front 
of  the  houses  the  men  do  their  cooking,  at  open  fires, 
with  wood  furnished  by  the  company.  The  men  earn 
an  average  of  eighty-two  cents  a  day  each,  and  are 
compelled  to  board  themselves.  They  usually  live  in 
messes,  one  man  in  the  mess  doing  the  cooking  for  a 
week.  The  company  has  stores  in  the  compound  where 
all  sorts  of  provisions  may  be  had  at  about  cost.  .  .  . 
The  men  come  from  the  interior,  and,  when  they  ar- 
rive, are  given  a  number.  This  number  is  retained 
until  the  man  quits,  or  is  discharged.  There  is  a  sys- 


298  TRAVEL  LETTERS  PROM 

tern  of  piece  work,  and  some  of  the  men  make  $1.25  a 
day.  The  eight-hour  system  prevails,  but  the  sys- 
tem of  team  work  is  such  that  all  the  men  work  steadily ; 
the  company  sees  to  it  that  there  are  no  shirkers.  So 
the  De  Beers  company  has  the  services  of  excellent 
workmen  at  an  average  cost  of  eighty-two  cents  a  day. 
There  is  a  modern  hospital  in  the  compound,  and  men 
who  are  injured  are  treated  free,  and,  in  addition,  re- 
ceive their  usual  wages  while  laid  up.  The  compound 
is  much  cleaner  than  an  ordinary  negro  village,  and 
many  of  the  men  remain  with  the  company  for  years. 
.  .  .  There  is  a  good  deal  of  water  in  the  Kimber- 
ley  mines.  In  one  of  them,  25,000  gallons  an  hour  is 
pumped  without  trouble  from  a  depth  of  1,500  feet. 
.  .  .  The  blue  dirt  is  hauled  from  the  mine  to  the 
field,  where  it  is  exposed  to  the  weather  for  a  year,  in 
iron  cars  holding  about  a  ton  each.  The  cars  are 
pulled  by  an  endless  cable,  and  one  of  the  sights  of 
Kimberley  is  these  cars  going  and  coming  without  at- 
tendance on  a  double-track  railway  two  or  three  miles 
long.  The  cars  run  in  bunches  of  three,  about  twenty 
yards  apart,  and  reminded  me  of  ants  coming  and  going. 
.  .  .  When  the  blue  dirt  is  ready  to  be  treated,  it 
is  hauled  to  the  washing-mills  in  the  same  cars,  and  in 
the  same  way.  At  the  washing-mills  there  is  a  large 
residue  known  to  contain  no  diamonds,  and  this  is  car- 
ried to  the  top  of  the  dump  and  thrown  away,  and  thus 
are  formed  the  gray  mounds  seen  around  the  town  of 
Kimberley.  .  .  .  The  Transvaal  government  has 
an  interest  in  the  Premier  diamond  mine  near  Pretoria, 
and  gets  sixty  per  cent  of  its  profits.  The  government's 
share  amounts  to  two  and  a  half  million  dollars  a  year. 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          299 

Whenever  a  diamond  mine  shows  a  disposition  to 
amount  to  a  good  deal,  the  De  Beers  company  buys  it. 
The  stockholders  in  the  De  Beers  company  have  grad- 
ually acquired  a  large  interest  in  the  Premier  mine, 
so  that  there  is  a  "gentlemen's  agreement"  in  the  dis- 
position of  diamonds.  ...  A  great  deal  of  haul- 
ing is  done  from  Kimberley  to  points  off  the  railroad, 
and  donkey  teams  are  used  hi  freighting.  Every  time 
I  go  on  the  streets  I  see  donkey  teams  of  ten  to  fourteen 
span  hitched  to  enormous  freight  wagons.  The  don- 
key teams  are  usually  driven  by  three  Kaffirs.  .  .  . 
The  favorite  vegetable  in  South  Africa  seems  to  be  cab- 
bage. At  the  public  markets  I  see  particularly  big 
stacks  of  it,  but  little  else.  In  the  public  market  of 
Kimberley,  vegetables  are  placed  on  the  ground;  I 
saw  string  beans  lying  on  the  ground,  in  the  filth  of  the 
market-place,  this  morning.  .  .  .  Kimberley  is 
very  dusty  and  dirty.  The  days  are  about  as  hot  now 
as  they  are  at  home  in  July  and  August,  but  the  nights 
are  much  cooler.  An  American  woman  who  has  lived 
in  South  Africa  nineteen  years,  says  she  has  never  slept 
a  night  without  blankets  over  her.  ...  I  was  fre- 
quently told  in  Kimberley  I  should  look  up  a  man 
named  Brink,  the  only  man  in  the  town  who  could  give 
away  diamonds,  if  so  disposed,  and  not  be  responsible 
to  anyone.  I  did  not  see  Brink,  but  I  saw  a  man  who 
sent  me  permits  which  enabled  me  to  see  most  points 
of  interest.  The  De  Beers  officials  are  very  polite  to 
visitors,  and  anyone  who  comes  recommended  may 
easily  see  all  there  is  to  see.  .  »  .  Kimberley  has 
one  long  business  street  which  is  very  creditable,  but 
outside  of  that  the  town  does  not  look  very  well.  Rain 


300  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

is  very  scarce,  much  scarcer  than  at  Johannesburg,  and 
when  the  wind  blows,  all  doors  must  be  closed,  owing 
to  the  dust  from  the  mine  dumps.  It  is  much  hotter 
here  in  summer  than  in  Johannesburg,  and  general 
conditions  of  living  worse.  I  shouldn't  mind  living  in 
Johannesburg,  but  I  don't  believe  I  could  be  content 
in  Kimberley. 


THURSDAY,  MARCH  20. — Today  we  traveled  from 
Kimberley  to  Bloemfontein,  and  the  same  polite  con- 
ductor was  in  charge  of  the  train.  He  not  only  gave 
us  a  compartment  to  ourselves,  but  presented  me  with 
a  Zulu  war-club  which  I  am  bringing  home  as  a  sou- 
venir. When  the  Zulus  go  to  Kimberley  to  work  in  the 
mines  they  are  not  allowed  to  take  their  war-clubs  into 
the  compounds,  and  sell  them  at  low  prices.  The  one 
I  have  is  a  fancy  affair,  and  probably  the  late  owner 
worked  on  it  for  two  weeks.  It  looks  as  though  it  has 
been  in  action,  and  has  probably  cracked  a  good  many 
heads.  .  .  .  We  were  compelled  to  wait  nearly 
three  hours  at  Bloemfontein  for  a  train  to  Johannes- 
burg, and  dined  at  Polly's  Hotel  Cecil.  Mr.  Polly  is  a 
model  hotel  man,  and  knows  his  business  so  well  that 
his  place  is  constantly  crowded,  while  the  opposition 
hotel,  just  across  the  street,  and  a  newer  and  larger 
place,  is  almost  deserted.  It  is  surprising  what  a  clever 
man  can  do  to  a  dull  one ;  if  Mr.  Polly  wants  the  larger 
and  newer  hotel,  my  prediction  is  that  he  will  have  it 
in  six  months.  .  .  .  We  walked  about  Bloemfon- 
tein for  an  hour  in  the  moonlight.  I  like  this  town,  be- 
cause it  is  dull,  and  the  people  are  consequently  polite. 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          301 

I  have  always  been  accustomed  to  dull  towns,  and  like 
St.  Louis  better  than  Chicago  because  St.  Louis  people 
are  not  so  struck  on  themselves.  Every  citizen  of 
Chicago  is  as  badly  spoilt  as  a  pretty  woman.  .  .  . 
It  being  the  night  before  Good  Friday,  which  is  a  holi- 
day here,  there  was  a  rush  of  passengers  for  Johannes- 
burg, and  the  friendly  conductor  could  not  get  us  a 
compartment  to  ourselves.  But  I  was  quartered  with 
two  very  interesting  and  polite  men  in  a  compartment 
for  four,  and  rather  enjoyed  the  night  ride.  .  .  . 
Let  the  passenger  conductors  on  American  railroads 
prepare  to  scream  with  horror  and  indignation  over  an 
incident  I  am  about  to  relate.  The  train  on  which  we 
rode  from  Bloemfontein  to  Johannesburg  was  composed 
of  twelve  coaches,  nearly  all  of  them  used  as  sleepers 
at  night.  The  conductor  not  only  took  up  the  tickets, 
and  looked  after  the  train,  but  he  acted  as  porter  in  all 
the  sleepers,  and  made  up  the  beds.  The  crowd  was 
so  large  that  we  did  not  get  our  beds  made  up  until 
midnight,  although  we  left  Bloemfontein  at  nine  o'clock. 
We  paid  sixty  cents  each  for  the  use  of  the  beds,  when 
we  finally  got  them.  The  beds  were  done  up  in  sepa- 
rate bundles,  two  sheets,  two  pillows  and  two  blankets 
in  each  bundle,  and  the  conductor  of  the  passenger  train 
was  compelled  to  take  these  out  of  lockers,  and  change 
all  the  seats  into  beds.  He  had  no  help  whatever,  and 
all  the  time  he  was  at  work,  passengers  were  snarling 
at  him  in  an  impudent  way.  I  have  never  before  seen 
anything  like  it  anywhere.  At  every  station  the  con- 
ductor was  compelled  to  go  out  to  the  platform,  and, 
when  the  train  started,  he  didn't  say  "All  aboard,"  but 
"All  seats."  Translated,  "All  seats"  means:  "The 


302  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

train  is  about  to  start ;  all  passengers  take  their  seats." 
.  .  .  After  we  got  to  bed  at  midnight,  country  boys 
were  constantly  racing  through  the  corridor  outside, 
and  looking  into  our  compartment  for  seats.  We  could 
not  lock  the  door,  and,  although  the  train  was  crowded 
when  we  left  Bloemfontein,  we  took  on  passengers  at 
every  station.  In  American  sleeping-cars,  you  en- 
gage a  sleeping-berth  in  advance,  and  after  bedtime 
the  cars  are  quiet ;  no  racing  through  the  aisles.  Here 
you  take  your  chance  of  getting  a  bed.  A  similar  train 
on  an  American  railway  would  have  had  a  train  con- 
ductor, a  Pullman  conductor,  and  a  porter  in  each 
sleeping-car.  The  door  of  our  compartment  was 
thrown  open  a  dozen  times  during  the  night,  but  my 
two  companions,  important  mining  men,  were  accus- 
tomed to  it,  and  were  not  annoyed.  The  beds  were 
narrow,  but  clean  and  comfortable ;  I  had  no  fault  to 
find  except  the  racing  of  country  boys  through  the  corri- 
dors. There  were  three  of  us  in  a  compartment  that 
would  have  seated  eight.  I  suppose  the  country  boys 
had  a  right  to  chase  us  out,  and  demand  that  five  of 
of  them  be  given  seats  in  the  compartment,  but  for- 
tunately they  did  not  do  it,  and  we  slept  a  little  to- 
ward morning. 


FRIDAY,  MARCH  21. — We  returned  to  Johannesburg 
at  8  o'clock  this  morning,  and  it  was  a  little  like  get- 
ting home.  We  found  two  excellent  rooms  awaiting 
us  at  the  Langham,  as  the  proprietor  expected  us,  and 
we  soon  forget  the  discomforts  of  the  night  ride.  We 
found  an  invitation  to  dinner  awaiting  us  at  the  hotel, 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          303 

and  among  other  agreeable  guests  we  met  at  this  agree- 
able affair  was  Edwin  N.  Gunsaulus,  American  consul. 
Mr.  Gunsaulus  of  course  keeps  in  touch  with  American 
affairs,  and  he  gave  us  a  good  deal  of  news  from  home. 
The  consul  is  a  cousin  of  Rev.  Frank  Gunsaulus,  the 
noted  American  preacher  and  lecturer,  and  comes  from 
a  town  in  Ohio  smaller  than  Atchison.  Another  fact 
that  endeared  him  to  me  is  that  he  formerly  ran  a 
weekly  newspaper,  and  was  editor,  publisher,  business 
manager,  reporter,  and  one  of  the  type-setters.  .  .  . 
I  may  as  well  tell  here  of  the  reprehensible  conduct  of 
an  American  now  a  resident  of  Johannesburg.  I  refer 
to  Isham  F.  Atterbury,  formerly  of  St.  Joseph,  Mis- 
souri, but  now  manager  of  the.  African  Realty  Trust. 
I  expect  the  American  women  to  be  as  indignant  over 
his  conduct  as  the  American  passenger  conductors  will 
be  over  the  treatment  of  the  conductor  of  the  train  on 
which  we  traveled  last  night.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Atter- 
bury were  also  guests  at  the  dinner,  and  the  story  I 
shall  relate  of  Mr.  Atterbury's  conduct  I  had  first-hand 
from  his  wife's  lips.  Mr.  Gunsaulus  also  heard  the 
story,  and  I  called  his  attention  to  it  particularly  by 
recommending  that,  as  American  consul,  he  do  some- 
thing about  it.  ...  The  story  is  as  follows :  For 
years  Mrs.  Atterbury  kept  house,  and  slaved,  as  Amer- 
ican women  do,  in  preparing  delicacies  for  her  husband 
to  eat,  in  order  that  she  might  keep  him  good-natured. 
But  human  endeavor  has  a  limit,  and  Mrs.  Atterbury's 
slaving  for  her  husband's  comfort  finally  resulted  in  a 
collapse,  and  a  trip  to  a  sanitarium.  After  her  partial 
recovery,  they  went  to  an  English  boarding-house, 
which  Mrs.  Atterbury  declares  is  worse  than  an  Ameri- 


304  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

can  boarding-house,  to  live.  And  here  is  where  Mr. 
Atterbury's  baseness  developed :  he  ate  as  heartily  of 
the  boarding-house  fare  as  he  had  ever  eaten  of  his  wife's 
cooking.  .  .  .  Although  the  incident  happened 
years  ago,  Mrs.  Atterbury  is  still  mad  about  it.  "And," 
she  added,  in  telling  of  her  wrongs,  "some  people  say 
I  am  a  pretty  fair  cook.  After  that,  I  quit  the  kitchen 
for  good,  and  have  been  boarding  ever  since."  .  .  . 
Their  young  gentleman  son,  Manfred  Atterbury,  is 
afraid  to  take  sides  in  the  controversy,  but  he  did  say 
that  his  father  doesn't  pay  much  attention  to  what  he 
eats ;  that  when  he  goes  to  the  table  he  usually  carries 
American  newspapers  or  magazines  with  him,  and  does- 
n't eat  anything  at  all  unless  his  attention  is  called  to 
the  fact  that  the  body  requires  a  certain  amount  of 
nourishment.  .  .  .  The  American  women  I  meet 
here  all  say  American  men  are  more  considerate  of  their 
wives  than  the  men  of  any  other  nation.  I  believe  that 
at  home  we  men  are  rather  unpopular  as  husbands, 
and  that  our  conduct  attracts  a  good  deal  of  unfavor- 
able criticism  from  American  wives;  but  abroad  we 
are  everywhere  toasted  because  of  our  devotion  to  our 
women-folks.  ...  At  the  dinner  tonight,  an  Amer- 
ican woman  said :  "Another  reason  I  want  to  go  home : 
I  want  to  see  pretty  girls  again."  There  are  not  many 
pretty  women  over  here,  whereas  America  is  full  of 
them;  particularly  in  dull  towns.  .  .  .  Another 
guest  at  the  dinner  tonight  was  H.  T.  Hofmeyer,  a 
prominent  Boer  lawyer  of  Johannesburg,  and  who  has 
just  served  two  terms  as  mayor.  He  is  much  inter- 
ested in  American  newspapers,  magazines,  books,  and 
citizens.  The  ex-mayor  and  Mr.  Gunsaulus,  the  Amer- 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          305 

ican  consul,  were  quite  impatient  with  me  because  I 
had  arranged  to  leave  Johannesburg  at  10  P.  M.  on  Mon- 
day evening,  whereas  they  said  no  train  left  at  that 
hour.  So  we  all  took  a  walk  to  the  railroad  station,  to 
get  the  facts.  It  turned  out  that  I  was  right  about 
it,  and  the  consul  and  Mr.  Hofmeyer  walked  all  the 
way  home  with  me,  in  explaining  how  they  happened 
to  be  mistaken.  .  .  .  Merchants  everywhere  work 
the  words  "reduction"  and  "cut  prices,"  for  all  they 
are  worth.  Wherever  we  have  been,  we  have  en- 
countered "reduction"  sales,  and  merchants  side  by 
side  abuse  each  other  in  the  placards  displayed.  "This 
is  a  real  reduction  sale,"  one  placard  read ;  "do  not  be 
deceived  by  false  pretenses  elsewhere."  One  shoe 
store  in  Johannesburg  displays  this  sign:  "Shoes  for 
next  to  nothing."  Every  storekeeper  thinks  he  is  a 
public  benefactor,  because  of  his  low  prices. 


SATURDAY,  MARCH  22. — When  I  left  home  I  was 
told  that  the  name  of  this  town  is  pronounced  Yohon- 
nesburg  by  its  citizens,  but  I  find  that  they  call  it 
"Joburg"  almost  universally.  ...  In  Durban, 
the  best  people  ride  in  rickshas;  here,  these  vehicles 
are  used  very  sparingly.  A  law  has  been  passed 
whereby  their  use  will  be  entirely  prohibited  in  two 
years.  It  is  claimed  that  the  ricksha  men  become 
overheated  while  running,  and  contract  consumption. 
.  .  .  A  sign  frequently  seen  in  Johannesburg  reads : 
"This  house  and  stand  for  sale."  It  is  equivalent  to 
"This  house  and  lot  for  sale."  I  was  out  this 


306  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

afternoon  with  five  Americans,  and  at  4  p.  M.  we  went 
into  an  enormous  place  to  drink  a  cup  of  tea.  There 
were  certainly  fifty  girl  waiters,  and  hundreds  of  cus- 
tomers. The  tea-room  included  a  long  balcony  above 
the  sidewalk,  and  similar  places  are  very  numerous  in 
Joburg.  I  am  told  that  tea-drinking  is  one  English 
habit  American  residents  soon  acquire.  .  .  .  The 
ordinary  natives  work  long  hours  here.  This  evening 
I  heard  a  boss  say  to  a  gang  of  street  laborers :  "Re- 
member that  we  begin  work  Monday  morning  at  5 :  30, 
not  at  6 : 30."  .  .  .  There  are  fourteen  annual 
holidays  here,  observed  by  the  whites  as  religiously  as 
we  observe  Christmas,  Thanksgiving,  and  the  Fourth 
of  July,  but  the  natives  do  not  seem  to  participate  in 
them.  If  there  is  anything  in  having  an  abundant 
supply  of  cheap  labor,  South  Africa  should  flourish. 
.  .  .  Over  in  Missouri,  many  of  the  farmers  have 
private  graveyards.  I  find  a  similar  custom  among  the 
Boer  farmers  in  South  Africa.  .  .  .A  big  sign  I 
saw  at  Bloemfontein  contained  this  imprint:  "D. 
Jones,  writer."  Meaning  that  D.  Jones  was  the  sign- 
writer  who  made  it.  Near  the  Hotel  Cecil  in  Bloem- 
fontein I  also  saw  this  sign :  "Hotel  Cecil  Toilet  Club." 
You  might  guess  a  week  without  guessing  what  the 
sign  meant :  the  place  was  the  hotel  'barber  shop. 
.  .  .  At  hotels,  I  always  hate  to  seethe  sign,  "Fire 
Escape ; "  somehow  it  disturbs  me.  But  the  proprietor 
of  the  Langham  thought  up  something  more  delicate ; 
instead  of  the  words  "Fire  Escape,"  he  uses  "Emer- 
gency Exit."  ...  I  am  always  meeting  queer 
people ;  I  met  a  woman  lately  who  said  she  would  as 
soon  drink  a  cup  of  castor  oil  as  a  cup  of  rich  cream, 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          307 

SUNDAY,  MARCH  23. — Johannesburg  and  Kimberley 
have  experienced  the  usual  high  life  incident  to  all  boom 
camps.  While  great  fortunes  have  been  made,  much 
money  has  been  lost,  and  suicide  is  almost  as  common 
here  as  in  Monte  Carlo.  Barney  Barnato,  one  of  the 
conspicuous  figures  in  both  camps,  committed  suicide 
at  sea,  by  jumping  overboard  while  en  route  to  Eng- 
land. But  his  act  was  not  due  to  lack  of  money,  as  he 
was  rich  at  the  tune,  and  was  just  completing  the  finest 
residence  hi  South  Africa.  The  building  is  now  used 
as  a  school ;  it  was  a  gift  for  school  purposes  from  the 
Barnato  estate.  .  .  .  Barney  Barnato  came  to 
South  Africa  as  a  circus  clown;  his  real  name  was 
Barnett  Isaacs,  and  he  was  a  Hebrew.  "Barney  Bar- 
nato" was  his  circus  name,  and  it  stuck  to  him  in  the 
days  of  his  prosperity,  when  he  became  a  diamond 
broker,  and  married  a  "Cape  woman;"  that  is,  a  ne- 
gress.  She  was  of  light  color,  but  so  dark  that  she  was 
never  received  socially.  Kimberley  and  Johannes- 
burg can  forgive  much  in  a  woman,  if  she  has  money, 
but  Mrs.  Barnato  was  never  forgiven.  It  is  said  here 
that  she  lived  with  Barnato  before  she  was  married 
to  him,  and  he  sent  her  to  London  to  dispose  of  dia- 
monds acquired  illegally.  Instead  of  depositing  the 
money  in  a  London  bank  in  Barnato's  name,  she  de- 
posited it  in  her  own  name,  and  Barnato  was  compelled 
to  marry  her  to  get  his  own  money.  .  .  .  Barnato 
prospered  greatly,  and  when  Cecil  Rhodes  and  Alfred 
Beit  organized  the  great  De  Beers  Consolidated  Com- 
pany, they  were  compelled  to  treat  with  him,  as  he 
owned  many  of  the  best  claims.  He  was  made  a  life 
director  in  the  De  Beers  Company,  and  the  evidence 


308  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

is  that  he  was  popular,  and  a  good  fellow.  All  the 
big  interests  here  have  holdings  in  Johannesburg  as  well 
as  at  Kimberley,  so  the  towns  are  closely  related.  .  .  . 
In  the  days  immediately  following  the  Jameson  raid, 
and  just  preceding  the  Boer  war,  Paul  Krueger  was  an 
autocrat,  and  very  unfair  with  the  big  English  inter- 
ests in  Johannesburg,  which  is  in  the  Transvaal.  Krue- 
ger was  then  president  of  the  Transvaal  republic,  and 
you  hear  it  stated  in  whispers  to  this  day  that  Barney 
Barnato,  or  some  one  for  him,  hired  an  adventurer 
named  Von  Veldtheim,  a  Londoner,  to  assassinate 
Krueger.  In  a  quarrel  Von  Veldtheim  killed  Wolf 
Joel,  Barnato's  uncle.  Von  Veldtheim  was  arrested, 
and  while  he  was  in  jail,  awaiting  trial,  Barnato  com- 
mitted suicide,  fearing,  it  is  said,  that  Von  Veldtheim 
would  tell  the  whole  story  when  tried  for  his  life.  But 
Von  Veldtheim  plead  self-defense,  and  was  acquitted 
by  the  Boer  courts.  He  returned  to  London,  and 
again  attempted  to  blackmail  members  of  the  De  Beers 
Company.  The  English  courts  sent  him  to  jail,  and 
he  is  there  now.  .  .  .  Cecil  Rhodes  was  the  best 
man  of  the  lot,  and  he  did  much  for  South  Africa,  as 
he  had  ideals  greater  than  making  money.  Rhodes  was 
a  bachelor,  and,  like  many  men  of  big  schemes,  a  hard 
drinker.  His  death  was  due,  I  have  often  heard,  to 
heavy  drinking.  He  is  buried  at  Bulawayo,  in  Rho- 
desia, which  he  placed  on  the  map,  and  which  is  named 
for  him.  Alfred  Beit  was  a  financial  man,  and  not  a 
great  deal  can  be  said  for  him  exceJFthat  he  was  very 
capable,  and  accumulated  an  enormous  fortune.  .  .  . 
Of  the  original  crowd  of  boomers,  Dr.  Jameson  is  about 
the  only  one  still  living,  and  he  is  everywhere  highly 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          309 

spoken  of.  He  was  originally  Cecil  Rhodes's  physician, 
but  had  business  ability,  and,  with  the  patronage  of 
Rhodes,  soon  became  an  important  figure  in  South 
Africa.  It  was  this  man  who  headed  the  Jameson  raid, 
intended  to  turn  the  Transvaal  republic  into  an  Eng- 
lish colony,  but  the  Boers  captured  him  and  his  men 
in  less  time  than  it  would  take  to  write  the  story. 
Jameson  and  his  chief  lieutenants  were  sentenced  to 
death,  and  Cecil  Rhodes,  who  really  inspired  the  raid, 
got  them  off.  This  was  accomplished  by  the  payment 
of  money  to  the  Boer  chiefs,  and  there  was  so  much 
of  it  that  you  hear  of  Paul  Krueger's  buried  treasure 
almost  as  frequently  as  you  hear  of  Captain  Kidd's. 
The  row  over  the  Jameson  raid  finally  resulted  in  the 
Boer  war,  and  the  flight  of  President  Krueger  to  Swit- 
zerland, where  he  died.  There  is  still  a  good  deal  of 
friction  between  the  English  and  Boers :  an  English 
paper  issued  this  morning  complains  that  at  an  agri- 
cultural fair  to  be  opened  in  Johannesburg  this  week, 
only  fifteen  per  cent  of  the  exhibitors  are  Boers.  .  .  . 
The  week  beginning  with  Easter  is  a  holiday  week,  and 
the  crowd  in  Johannesburg  is  so  large  now  that  tents 
have  been  erected  in  many  places  to  accommodate  the 
visitors.  The  streets  this  afternoon  were  packed,  and 
certainly  nineteen  out  of  twenty  were  men.  This  is  a 
man's  country.  .  .  .  The  American  consul  told  me 
today  that  he  does  not  hear  much  of  missionaries  in  this 
section,  except  of  a  few  Mormons,  who  are  unpopular 
because  of  the  notion,  probably  mistaken,  that  they 
teach  polygamy.  We  called  at  the  consul's  office  to- 
day, and  were  much  pleased  with  the  many  pictures 
we  saw  there  of  American  saints:  Washington,  Lin- 


310  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

coin,  McKinley,  Roosevelt,  Taft,  Wilson,  etc.  .  .  . 
In  going  down  in  the  elevator  at  the  Langham  hotel 
today,  I  saw  a  cheap  book  the  elevator  boy  had  been 
reading.  Picking  it  up,  I  saw  that  the  title  was : 
"Buffalo's  Bill's  Warning."  So  it  seems  American 
literature,  which  is  said  to  be  unknown  abroad,  is  get- 
ting a  start. 


MONDAY,  MARCH  24. — This  evening  we  had  six 
American  guests  at  dinner  at  our  hotel :  Mr.  Gun- 
saulus,  the  American  consul  at  Johannesburg;  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Atterbury  and  their  son  Manfred,  and  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Mark  Gary.  Mr.  Gary  had  been  at  Cape- 
town and  Durban  during  our  stay  in  Johannesburg, 
but  returned  late  this  afternoon,  and  drove  direct  from 
the  train  to  the  hotel.  The  hotel  orchestra,  as  a  com- 
pliment to  our  party,  played  American  rag  time.  At 
9  :  30  P.  M.  the  entire  party  walked  with  us  to  the  rail- 
way station,  where  we  were  to  take  a  train  for  Bula- 
wayo,  en  route  to  Victoria  Falls.  Our  baggage  had 
been  sent  to  the  station  in  advance,  and  we  carried 
nothing  except  an  enormous  package  of  American  news- 
papers :  copies  of  the  Chicago  Tribune  and  New  York 
World.  .  .  .  The  train  did  not  get  away  until 
10 :  25  P.  M.,  being  late,  but  our  friends  remained  until 
we  departed.  I  tried  to  coax  them  to  go  home,  but  they 
wouldn't  do  it;  when  people  are  very  nice  to  me  it 
makes  me  as  uncomfortable  as  when  they  are  not  nice 
enough.  .  .  .  When  we  arrived  at  the  station  we 
found  a  chart  displayed  against  a  wall  showing  that 
"Mr.  and  Miss  Howe"  had  been  assigned  to  a  com- 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          311 

partment  large  enough  for  four,  and  from  the  interest 
Mr.  Gunsaulus  and  Mr.  Atterbury  took  in  the  matter, 
I  imagined  they  had  a  good  deal  to  do  with  securing 
this  very  agreeable  and  unusual  concession.  ...  I 
should  like  to  have  the  pleasure  of  entertaining  Mrs. 
Atterbury,  particularly,  when  she  makes  her  long-de- 
layed visit  home.  She  has  been  away  nineteen  years, 
and  if  ever  there  was  a  true  patriot,  she  is  one;  her 
enjoyment  at  being  among  Americans  again  would  be 
worth  witnessing.  She  is  always  talking  of  "going 
home,"  and  telling  of  the  many  nice  people  she  knows 
there,  and  nothing  would  please  me  more  than  to  assist 
in  realizing,  as  far  as  possible,  all  her  present  expecta- 
tions. Isham,  her  husband,  has  been  promising  a  long 
tune  to  take  her  home  "next  year,"  but  she  now  de- 
clares that  if  he  doesn't  keep  his  promise  by  March  1, 
1914,  she  will  go  alone.  We  spent  half  our  time  in 
Johannesburg  with  the  Atterburys;  in  addition  to 
innumerable  meals  we  ate  with  them,  they  gave  us  one 
dinner  at  which  we  had  four  kinds  of  wine.  So  if  her 
friends  in  St.  Joe  will  let  me  know  the  date  of  her  ar- 
rival, I  will  be  at  the  station  to  welcome  her.  .  .  . 
Soon  after  the  train  conductor  looked  at  our  tickets, 
he  proceeded  to  lug  two  huge  bags  of  bed-clothing  into 
our  compartment,  and  make  up  two  beds.  We  paid 
$1.20  for  the  use  of  the  bed-clothing  two  nights ;  the 
charge  would  have  been  the  same  for  one  night.  So 
that  we  will  have  a  large  compartment  to  ourselves 
two  nights  and  a  day,  and  pay  only  $1.20  above  the 
regular  fare.  The  beds  were  comfortable,  though 
somewhat  narrow,  but  we  slept  as  well,  I  imagine,  as 
people  usually  do  on  a  sleeping-car.  On  our  door  and 


312  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

on  our  window  were  placards  announcing  that  the  com- 
partment was  reserved,  and  we  were  not  disturbed  dur- 
ing the  journey.  The  South- African  sleeping-cars  are 
not  at  all  bad,  except  that  the  train  conductor  has  so 
much  to  do  that  he  cannot  keep  them  as  clean  as  they 
should  be.  The  conductor  did  not  polish  my  shoes  at 
night,  but  I  knew  he  was  very  busy,  and  overlooked  his 
neglect.  .  .  .  On  one  or  two  trains  we  have  been 
on,  there  was  a  man  who  helped  the  conductor,  but 
on  at  least  two  crowded  trains  on  which  we  traveled,  the 
conductor  has  had  no  help  whatever  in  making  up  the 
beds ;  the  most  curious  thing  I  have  ever  noted  in  rail- 
road travel.  There  is  a  guard  on  the  train,  who  is 
what  we  call  a  brakeman,  but  he  does  not  assist  the 
conductor  in  the  chamber-work.  When  these  con- 
ductors are  taking  the  tickets,  they  are  as  haughty  as 
are  American  conductors,  but  when  they  begin  lugging 
in  sheets,  pillows  and  mattresses,  they  are  as  humble 
as  the  most  timid  traveler  could  wish. 


TUESDAY,  MARCH  25. — This  is  written  on  the  Im- 
perial Mail  train,  on  the  line  of  South-African  railway 
extending  from  Capetown  to  Victoria  Falls  and  beyond. 
This  will  eventually  become  the  "Cape  to  Cairo"  rail- 
way, extending  from  Capetown,  on  the  seacoast  in 
South  Africa,  to  Cairo,  in  Egypt.  You  may  recall  that 
Colonel  Roosevelt,  on  his  famous  hunting  trip  in  Africa, 
went  by  rail  as  far  as  he  could,  and  then  tramped 
through  the  wild  country  to  the  end  of  the  line  extend- 
ing south  from  Egypt,  and  then  went  to  Cairo.  Alfred 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          313 

Beit,  one  of  the  bonanza  kings  of  Johannesburg  and 
Kimberley,  left  six  million  dollars  to  be  used  in  com- 
pleting the  gap  between  the  African  and  Egyptian 
lines.  When  the  "Cape  to  Cairo"  line  is  finally  com- 
pleted, it  will  become  as  famous  as  the  line  from  Mos- 
cow, in  Russia,  to  a  port  on  the  Sea  of  Japan.  This 
line  was  built  by  the  Russians,  and  the  distance  from 
Moscow  to  Japan  is  now  made  in  comfortable  trains 
in  ten  days.  Think  of  ten  days  of  continuous  travel 
in  the  same  coaches,  in  the  same  train,  and  on  the  same 
railway!  Great  as  is  America,  it  has  nothing  like  it; 
although  we  are  talking  of  a  line  from  New  York  to 
Buenos  Aires;  in  South  America.  Thousands  of  miles 
of  the  proposed  line  are  in  operation,  but  there  are  gaps 
in  Central  and  South  America  so  difficult  that  it  may 
never  be  completed,  while  the  "Cape  to  Cairo"  line 
may  be  a  reality  within  the  next  twenty  years.  .  .  . 
Always  remember  that  in  South  Africa  there  is  no  rich, 
black  soil  such  as  you  see  in  Illinois,  Iowa,  eastern  Kan- 
sas, and  other  of  our  best  states.  At  least,  I  have  not 
seen  any.  The  soil  in  Africa  is  usually  thin  and  red, 
and  stones  abound  nearly  everywhere.  No  part  of 
Africa  has  as  reliable  a  rainfall  as  the  best  parts  of  the 
United  States.  But  nevertheless  there  is  a  fascination 
about  this  frontier  country  to  an  American ;  were  I  a 
younger  man,  probably  the  "spirit  of  the  Veldt"  would 
appeal  to  me  more  strongly  than  it  does.  All  sorts 
of  problems,  including  irrigation  and  dry-farming,  are 
being  worked  out  here.  I  have  seen  little  country  in 
Africa  that  looks  any  better  than  Kansas  looks  two 
hundred  miles  from  the  river,  and  the  trouble  is  lack 
of  a  dependable  rainfall.  Along  the  coast  there  is  so 


314  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

much  rain  that  sugar-cane  is  grown  without  irrigation, 
and  there  is  much  good  country,  but  today,  eight  hun- 
dred miles  from  the  coast,  we  are  in  a  dry,  mountainous 
district  which  reminds  one  of  Arizona.  .  .  .  To- 
day we  are  seeing  blanket  negroes ;  native  blacks  who 
wear  nothing  but  blankets,  still  a  habit  with  some  of 
our  Indians.  Between  the  lonely  stations,  we  see  na- 
tive villages  which  seem  as  primitive  as  anything  Africa 
can  produce ;  at  the  stations,  also,  we  see  some  negro 
men  and  women  dressed  as  well  as  our  best  negroes  at 
home.  This  morning  we  saw  negro  beggars  for  the 
first  time :  black  children  ran  beside  the  train  at  a 
stopping-place,  and,  patting  their  stomachs,  indicated 
that  they  were  hungry,  as  a  means  of  inducing  the  pas- 
sengers to  throw  pennies  to  them.  ...  At  the 
stations,  also,  we  see  strong,  capable  Englishmen. 
These  are  the  men  who  are  engaged  in  working  out  the 
South-African  problems,  and  they  are  undoubtedly 
making  progress.  .  .  .  The  white  race  can  only 
flourish  in  certain  parts  of  Africa ;  in  sections  four  thou- 
sand feet  or  more  above  sea-level.  Other  portions  of 
country  must  be  left,  for  a  long  time  at  least,  to  the 
natives.  Just  what  proportion  of  Africa  is  4,000  feet 
or  more  above  sea-level,  I  do  not  know,  but  I  have  seen 
the  proportion  stated  as  one-fourth  in  a  certain  sec- 
tion. .  .  .  Most  of  the  native  male  children  we 
are  seeing  today  are  entirely  naked,  and  their  parents 
wear  nothing  but  blankets  when  they  come  out  to  see 
the  train  go  by ;  no  doubt  they  wear  less  when  not  under 
observation.  .  .  .  Tomorrow  morning  we  will  leave 
the  train  at  Bulawayo,  for  a  two-days  stay.  This 
town  is  in  Rhodesia,  which  is  as  big  as  half  of  Europe. 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          315 

All  of  this  immense  territory  belongs  to  and  is  admin- 
istered by  a  British  company,  and  is  not  a  member  of 
the  South-African  union.  In  Rhodesia  there  are  25,- 
000  Europeans  and  a  million  natives.  The  head  of 
every  native  family  is  compelled  to  pay  the  British 
company  an  annual  tax  of  $5,  with  $2  extra  for  each  ad- 
ditional wife.  Many  of  the  native  men  who  work  in  the 
mines  in  Johannesburg  and  Kimberley  came  from  the 
poor  villages  we  are  seeing  today.  The  villages  are  all 
alike :  the  houses  are  straw-covered  huts,  and  the  in- 
habitants seem  to  be  as  poor  as  people  can  be.  The 
native  men  only  work  as  a  means  of  buying  wives. 
.  .  .  When  Abel  and  Sampson  return  home,  they 
probably  return  to  wretched  villages  such  as  we  are 
seeing  today.  Abel  and  Sampson  are  the  servants  at 
the  home  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Mark  Gary,  in  Johannes- 
burg. Abel  has  a  sweetheart,  and  is  paving  money 
to  buy  her  of  her  father.  She  is  probably  a  fourteen 
or  fifteen-year-old  girl  living  in  a  village  such  as  we 
are  seeing  today.  .  .  .  Since  leaving  Sydney,  Aus- 
tralia, six  weeks  ago,  we  haven't  seen  an  American  trav- 
eler. They  seem  to  be  very  scarce  in  this  part  of  the 
world.  At  one  of  the  diamond  mines  we  visited  in 
Kimberley,  there  was  a  book  in  which  all  visitors  reg- 
istered. We  looked  through  twenty  or  more  pages 
without  finding  a  visitor  registered  from  the  United 
States.  ...  I  have  seen  only  two  bunches  of 
ostriches  on  the  trip ;  the  second  this  morning  near 
Mafeking.  This  town  was  conspicuous  during  the 
Boer  war,  because  of  the  operations  of  General  Baden- 
Powell.  It  is  a  pretty  and  important  place,  and  has 
railroad  shops,  as  the  Johannesburg  branch  joins  the 


316  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

main  line  there.  It  has  1,400  people,  but  near  it  is  a 
native  town  with  three  times  as  many.  ...  In 
some  places  along  the  line,  the  soil  is  so  thin  that  the 
railroad  dump  is  made  of  stones ;  there  is  not  enough 
dirt  for  the  purpose.  The  telegraph  poles  and  ties 
are  of  iron,  which  indicates  the  lack  of  timber.  The 
track  is  excellent,  and  the  train  runs  rapidly.  We  have 
become  so  accustomed  to  the  narrow  gauge  that  we 
do  not  notice  the  difference.  .  .  .  The  dining-car 
on  this  train  is  clean,  and  the  meals  very  good.  When 
we  went  in  for  the  first  meal,  we  were  told  to  pay  at 
the  end  of  the  journey ;  so  tomorrow  morning  I  will 
pay  for  three  meals.  Which  is  another  unusual  inci- 
dent of  railroad  travel.  We  notice  here  that  hotel  and 
train  employees  always  know  our  names.  When  we 
went  into  the  dining-car  for  lunch  to  day,  the  waiter 
asked  if  we  were  Mr.  and  Miss  Howe.  Being  informed 
that  we  were,  the  man  escorted  us  to  a  table  that  had 
been  reserved.  We  are  charged  seventy-two  cents  for 
lunch  and  dinner,  and  sixty  cents  for  breakfast.  .  .  . 
In  Johannesburg  and  Kimberley,  we  frequently  saw 
the  native  miners  going  to  the  station  to  take  trams  for 
their  homes.  Here  at  nearly  every  station  we  see  na- 
tive miners  who  have  completed  their  visit  home,  and 
are  going  back  to  work.  ...  In  one  little  valley 
we  passed  through  were  a  good  many  fields  of  kaffir 
corn,  and  in  every  case  the  workers  were  women  and 
children.  Possibly  the  men  were  away  working  in  the 
mines.  .  .  .  The  country  in  which  we  are  travel- 
ing this  afternoon  is  eleven  hundred  miles  from  Cape- 
town, and  the  track  is  not  fenced.  The  occasional 
bunches  of  goats  and  cattle — I  see  no  sheep — seem  to 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          317 

love  the  railroad  track,  and  the  engineer  is  compelled 
to  slow  up,  and  drive  them  off  with  his  whistle.  .  .  . 
This  evening  we  are  about  as  far  in  the  interior  of  Africa 
from  Capetown  as  the  Mississippi  river  is  from  New 
York,  and  are  beginning  to  have  trouble  with  dust.  I 
believe  I  have  never  been  bothered  with  dust  as  I  am 
here ;  but  we  cannot  see  it — it  seems  to  be  a  part  of  the 
air.  .  .  .  We  passed  within  thirty  miles  of  Serome, 
containing  thirty  thousand  people,  and  one  of  the  larg- 
est native  towns  in  South  Africa.  The  chief  of  this 
tribe  does  not  allow  liquor  to  be  sold  in  his  territory, 
and  is  quite  progressive.  He  rules  over  a  territory  a 
hundred  miles  square.  In  his  town  of  Serome  there  are 
a  good  many  white  storekeepers  and  traders,  who  buy 
corn,  skins,  etc.,  and  ship  them  to  the  railroad  by  ox 
teams.  Serome  is  in  a  vast  territory  known  as  the 
"Protectorate;"  the  British  government  protects  the 
natives  in  their  right  to  rule  through  chiefs.  British 
officials,  usually  army  officers,  are  scattered  throughout 
the  territory,  to  advise  and  really  rule  the  chiefs.  The 
natives  have  their  own  petty  courts,  but  the  superior 
courts  are  British.  We  are  well  out  of  the  Boer  terri- 
tory now.  The  Boers  once  planned  to  annex  the  vast 
territory  now  known  as  Rhodesia,  which  fact  caused 
Cecil  Rhodes  to  hurry  into  the  country  with  an  armed 
force,  and  claim  it  for  the  British.  .  .  .  The  tracks 
of  the  South-African  railway  are  uniformly  good,  and 
as  night  approached,  the  weather  became  cooler.  The 
dust  we  experienced  earlier  in  the  day  came  from  a 
desert  where  discomfort  is  always  experienced.  .  .  . 
At  one  place,  we  saw  a  negro  hoeing  corn  in  a  field,  stark 
naked.  Whether  the  negro  was  man  or  woman,  I 


318  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

could  not  tell  at  the  distance,  but  as  women  do  most 
of  the  field  work  here,  I  fear  it  was  a  woman,  and  that 
I  saw  a  very  improper  sight  while  innocently  endeavor- 
ing to  broaden  my  mind  by  travel.  .  .  .  Railroad 
grading  is  done  here  with  pick  and  shovel,  and  not  with 
horse  or  steam  scrapers.  At  one  station  a  long  siding 
was  being  put  in,  and  the  necessary  cut  was  being  made 
by  negroes  who  used  only  picks  and  shovels.  .  . 
The  passengers  on  this  train,  which  is  a  Limited,  are 
a  nice  lot,  and  very  polite.  Although  all  men  are  sup- 
posed to  be  equal,  the  difference  between  the  passen- 
gers on  a  Limited  train  and  the  passengers  on  an  excur- 
sion train  is  very  marked.  The  difference  between 
the  patrons  of  a  first-  and  second-class  hotel  may  also 
be  noted  without  difficulty. 


WEDNESDAY,  MARCH  26. — The  distance  from  Mafe- 
king  to  Bulawayo  is  485  miles,  and  our  train  made  it  in 
twenty-four  hours.  If  there  is  a  town  between  Mafe- 
king  and  Bulawayo,  we  passed  through  it  during  the 
night ;  we  stopped  at  a  good  many  lonely  stations,  but 
saw  no  towns.  And  we  passed  but  one  train  on  the 
way:  a  passenger  train  coming  from  Victoria  Falls. 
.  .  .  We  arrived  at  Bulawayo  this  morning  at  9  :  30, 
on  time  to  the  second,  although  we  left  Johannesburg 
and  Mafeking  late.  We  were  taken  to  the  Grand 
Hotel  in  an  automobile,  of  which  the  hotel  porter  was 
the  driver,  and  the  manager  met  us  with  the  question : 
"Mr.  and  Miss  Howe?"  You  travel  by  schedule  here, 
and  your  coming  is  known  in  advance.  .  .  .  Last 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          319 

night  the  weather  was  chilly,  although  the  afternoon 
was  almost  insufferably  hot  and  dusty.  All  day  yes- 
terday we  traveled  through  a  country  covered  with 
scrubby  trees;  trees  so  bent  and  twisted  that  they 
looked  as  though  they  had  rheumatism  hi  every  limb 
and  joint.  This  morning  we  awoke  in  Rhodesia,  and 
the  country  improved  in  character,  though  the  land 
was  still  of  the  Arizona  kind  rather  than  of  the  Iowa  or 
eastern  Kansas  kind.  In  Rhodesia  we  saw  larger  corn- 
fields than  we  saw  yesterday,  but  the  fields  were  many 
miles  apart.  Corn  is  the  staple  crop  all  over  Africa, 
but  the  corn  I  have  seen  was  small.  .  .  .  Africa  is 
an  enormous  country ;  when  it  comes  to  size,  we  must 
take  off  our  hats  to  it.  But  nine  hundred  miles  in  the 
interior,  you  do  not  find  a  city  like  Chicago ;  the  fourth 
or  fifth  city  in  the  world,  and  built  up  from  agriculture. 
Africa  was  known  before  Columbus  discovered  Amer- 
ica ;  had  it  been  as  rich  agriculturally  as  North  Amer- 
ica, the  negroes  would  have  been  chased  out  by  farmers 
as  promptly  as  the  Indians  were  chased  out  of  North 
America.  In  Africa  today  there  are  negro  tribes  as 
wild  as  were  the  wildest  tribes  hundreds  of  years  ago. 
There  is  here  a  tribe  known  as  the  Bushmen.  Their 
'language  is  a  collection  of  clicks  and  grunts,  these 
last,  absent  hi  the  other  African  dialects,  being  said  to 
bear  a  resemblance  to  the  different  cries  of  the  baboon. 

The  Bushman  is  so  much  like  the  baboon  that  he  has  no 

• 

conception  of  right  or  wrong;  it  is  as  impossible  to 
civilize  him  as  it  is  impossible  to  civilize  the  monkey. 
He  is  the  missing  link  between  the  monkey  most  like 
man,  and  the  human  animal.  He  can  no  more  under- 
stand the  rights  of  property  than  can  the  lion  or  the 


320  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

jackal;  theft  is  not  a  crime  with  him,  because  he  can- 
not appreciate  that  theft  is  wrong.  So  it  has  been 
found  necessary  to  drive  him  to  the  wildest  and  most 
inaccessible  sections  of  the  country,  and,  when  he  ap- 
pears in  civilization,  is  hunted  as  ruthlessly  as  are  cun- 
ning and  dangerous  wild  animals.  No  Bushman  has 
ever  been  know  to  cultivate  a  field ;  he  lives  entirely 
by  hunting  animals,  wild  berries,  roots,  etc.,  and  no 
white  man  has  ever  been  able  to  understand  the  Bush- 
man's language.  .  .  .  Africa  is  behind  us  in  civili- 
zation because  its  land  is  poorer.  In  many  of  our  best 
states  it  was  possible  in  early  times,  before  fences  were 
introduced,  to  plow  a  furrow  hundreds  of  miles  long, 
and  every  foot  of  the  land  represented  a  rich,  deep, 
black  soil  that  would  produce  marvelous  crops  without 
irrigation  or  fertilizing.  There  is  no  such  land  in  Af- 
rica; the  abundance  of  such  land  in  North  America 
explains  why  it  has  a  hundred  million  progressive  peo- 
ple, and  is  everywhere  known  as  the  best  country  the 
sun  shines  on.  Possibly  modesty  should  cause  us  to 
boast  less,  but  the  big  talk  we  use  in  Fourth  of  July 
addresses  is  not  far  from  the  truth.  .  .  .  Do  Amer- 
icans boast  a  good  deal?  On  the  contrary,  I  sometimes 
fear  they  habitually  deny  nearly  every  good  thing  that 
may  be  said  about  their  country.  In  Johannesburg  I 
was  given  a  big  bundle  of  American  newspapers  and 
magazines,  and  read  them  in  coming  here.  I  saw  no 
boasting ;  on  the  contrary,  I  read  dozens  of  sensational 
scandals  that  were  in  the  main  baseless.  One  worthy 
and  useful  old  gentleman,  I  read,  is  being  harassed  by 
an  impudent  investigating  committee,  although  so  ill 
that  he  cannot  speak  above  a  whisper.  I  read  that  a 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          321 

prominent  American  manufacturer,  who  certainly  de- 
serves well  of  his  country,  has  been  sentenced  to  jail 
and  fined  $50,000,  on  a  charge  that  seems  trifling.  I 
read  of  a  case  wherein  a  negro  assaulted  a  worthy  white 
woman  in  the  South.  The  papers  are  determined  to 
make  out  that  the  woman  was  assaulted  and  cut  with 
a  knife  by  her  husband,  who  caught  her  flirting  with 
another  man.  The  woman  and  her  husband,  and  all 
their  friends  who  were  about  them  at  the  time,  swear  in 
court  that  the  assault  was  committed  by  a  mulatto, 
whom  none  of  them  knew ;  there  is  no  sworn  evidence 
whatever  to  the  contrary.  It  was  rumored  for  months 
before  the  trial  began  that  a  newspaper  reporter  was 
smuggled  into  the  office  of  the  prosecuting  attorney 
when  the  husband  and  wife  were  examined,  soon  after 
the  assault,  and  that  the  reporter  heard  the  husband 
say  incriminating  things  to  his  wife,  during  the  tempo- 
rary absence  of  the  prosecuting  attorney ;  but  at  the 
trial,  the  reporter  was  a  witness,  and  swore  to  no  such 
incident.  At  this  distance,  it  looks  as  though  the  gos- 
sips have  the  assistance  of  the  courts  and  the  news- 
papers in  making  good  their  vicious  and  untruthful 
tales.  ...  Is  this  boasting?  Is  it  not,  on  the 
contrary,  making  ourselves  mean  when  we  are  usually 
creditable  and  decent?  ...  To  a  hurried  visitor, 
Bulawayo  seems  even  handsomer,  and  duller,  than 
Bloemfontein,  the  old  Dutch  town  in  the  Orange  Free 
State  which  I  admired  so  much.  The  Grand  Hotel 
here  is  excellent,  and  the  town  clean  and  handsome, 
but  I  see  little  business  going  on.  It  may  be  that  the 
farmers  come  in  some  other  day  in  the  week,  but  I 
wonder  at  and  enjoy  the  quietness  in  Bulawayo.  So 


322  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

far  I  have  seen  no  great  number  of  pretty  women,  who 
always  distinguish  a  dull  town,  but  possibly  they  have 
been  kept  in  by  a  rain  which  began  falling  soon  after 
my  arrival.  Work  is  in  progress  here  on  a  government 
building  which  would  do  credit  to  a  state  capital  in 
America,  but  this  not  the  capital  of  Rhodesia;  that 
honor  belongs  to  Salisbury,  three  hundred  miles  away. 
The  new  building  will  be  occupied  by  officials  of  the 
British  company  which  owns  Rhodesia,  and  the  post- 
office.  .  .  .  When  the  Union  Pacific  Railway  was 
built,  in  the  days  immediately  following  the  Civil  War, 
the  government  gave  the  company  a  strip  of  land  on 
both  sides  of  the  track,  as  a  reward  for  developing  the 
country.  In  like  manner,  the  English  government 
gave  Rhodesia  to  certain  capitalists,  except  that  in  this 
case  the  capitalists  govern  the  country ;  they  collect 
taxes,  try  criminals,  hang  them  when  necessary,  collect 
customs,  and  otherwise  administer  public  affairs.  The 
police  and  militia  of  Rhodesia  serve  the  Rhodesia  com- 
pany ;  when  a  man  buys  public  land,  he  buys  it  of  the 
Rhodesia  company;  but  back  of  the  Rhodesia  com- 
pany, John  Bull  is  a  silent  but  powerful  figure,  and 
nothing  can  be  done  without  his  approval  and  consent. 
India  was  governed  many  years  by  the  East  India 
company,  but  finally  Victoria  was  made 'Empress  of 
India.  Rhodesia  will  eventually  become  a  member  of 
the  South- African  union,  certainly;  it  may  be  even 
closer  than  that  to  the  British  crown.  .  .  .  Flies 
and  mosquitoes  terrorize  me  in  Africa.  There  is  a  fly 
here  which  gives  the  dreaded  Sleeping  Sickness  with  its 
bite,  and  there  is  a  mosquito  which  gives  you  typhoid. 
I  strike  at  both  insects  as  promptly  as  the  average  man 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.    323 

strikes  at  a  moth  miller  when  around  home.  I  never 
knew  a  man  so  dignified  that  he  wouldn't  take  a  smash 
at  a  moth  miller.  .  .  .  The  Bulawayo  newspaper, 
issued  this  morning,  tells  of  the  depredations  of  lions 
in  the  surrounding  country.  Several  cattle  and  one 
native  were  killed.  Let  American  country  editors 
think  of  exciting  country  correspondence  of  that  kind. 


THURSDAY,  MARCH  27. — Thirty  miles  from  Bulawayo 
is  a  district  known  as  the  Matopo  Hills,  one  hundred 
miles  long  by  twenty-five  broad.  During  the  Matabele 
rebellion  of  1896-7,  these  rough  hills  of  granite  proved 
impregnable  when  occupied  by  the  natives,  as  they  are 
full  of  passes  and  gigantic  caves,  and  occasional  fertile 
but  almost  inaccessible  valleys.  Cecil  Rhodes  loved 
this  district,  because  of  its  wildness,  and  one  of  his  last 
requests  was  that  his  body  be  buried  on  top  of  the  high- 
est of  the  Matopo  Hills.  We  visited  his  grave  today, 
during  the  course  of  an  automobile  ride.  There  is  no 
monument  over  his  grave ;  a  simple  flat  stone  covers 
it.  Two  hundred  feet  away,  and  on  top  of  the  same 
hill,  is  a  monument  "In  Memory  of  Brave  Men."  It 
is  a  huge  affair  of  granite,  in  memory  of  Major  Allan 
Wilson  and  his  party,  who  fell  on  the  Shangaui  river 
in  1893.  It  is  a  common  habit  of  discreet  men  to  erect 
handsome  monuments  over  the  graves  of  foolhardy  ad- 
venturers, and  call  them  brave.  Thousands  of  men 
lost  their  lives  in  order  that  Cecil  Rhodes  might  be- 
come noted,  and  be  the  subject  of  statues  at  Kimberley, 
Johannesburg,  Bulawayo,  etc.  Other  noted  men  have 


324  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

sacrificed  the  lives  of  their  followers  with  equal  reck- 
lessness. .  .  .  On  the  four  sides  of  the  notable 
monument  near  Rhodes's  grave  are  bronze  panels  show- 
ing scenes  from  various  campaigns  in  Rhodesia;  the 
figures  are  of  heroic  size,  and  executed  with  so  much 
faithfulness  by  John  Tweed  that  many  of  the  faces 
may  be  recognized.  .  .  .  From  Rhodes's  grave, 
the  Matopo  Hills  may  be  seen  in  all  their  remarkable 
desolation.  The  place  looks  like  hell  with  the  fires  out ; 
like  the  world  upside  down.  Rhodes  had  a  model 
farm  of  115,000  acres  just  outside  the  Hills,  and  spent 
$150,000  on  an  irrigating  dam.  He  expected  this  dam 
to  irrigate  2,000  acres,  but  it  actually  irrigates  less  than 
700.  Rhodes  spent  considerable  time  on  this  farm, 
and  frequently  went  to  the  high  hill  where  his  body  was 
afterwards  buried.  In  moods  of  despondency,  when 
he  knew  his  illness  must  soon  result  in  death,  he  spent 
several  moonlight  nights  on  the  spot  where  his  grave 
is  now  located.  Several  attendants  accompanied  him, 
but  he  said  little  to  them ;  he  silently  looked  around  at 
what  is  probably  the  most  majestic  scene  of  desolation 
in  the  world.  Rhodes  was  less  than  fifty  when  he  died, 
and  his  thoughts  about  the  vanities  of  life  would  have 
been  exceedingly  interesting  in  print.  He  was  one  of 
the  remarkable  characters  of  recent  history,  and  I  shall 
long  remember  him;  especially  because  of  a  statue 
erected  in  his  memory  at  the  crossing  of  two  principal 
streets  in  Bulawayo.  This  statue  is  a  wonderfully 
lifelike  reproduction  of  a  man,  and  I  have  repeatedly 
looked  at  it  with  more  interest  than  I  usually  look  at 
works  of  art.  .  .  .  On  the  journey  to  the  Matopo 
Hills,  we  saw  frequent  bunches  of  wild  baboons;  in 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.    325 

one  lot  there  must  have  been  twenty  or  thirty.  These 
animals  are  a  nuisance  to  farmers,  as  they  kill  sheep ; 
it  is  therefore  necessary  to  hunt  them  with  dogs.  .  .  . 
On  the  way  to  the  Matopo  Hills  is  a  hotel.  We  ate 
lunch  there  on  our  return  trip,  and  a  bride  and  groom 
started  out  ahead  of  us,  in  an  automobile.  We  finally 
overtook  them,  but  the  bride  and  groom  were  utterly 
unconscious  of  our  presence,  and  hugged  and  kissed 
most  of  the  way  to  Bulawayo.  A  mother  and  daughter, 
traveling  acquaintances,  accompanied  us,  and  the 
daughter  was  particularly  interested  in  the  actions  of 
the  bride  and  groom.  Later,  when  we  punctured  a 
tire,  and  stopped  for  repairs,  the  girl  confessed  that  she 
is  to  be  married  in  a  few  weeks.  She  is  the  daughter 
of  a  big  farmer  in  the  Transvaal,  and  will  marry  a  young 
banker.  A  banker  is  as  particular  about  marrying  a 
rich  woman  as  an  army  officer.  Ever  know  a  banker 
or  an  army  officer  to  marry  a  poor  girl?  .  .  .  The 
bride  and  groom  hi  front  of  us  greatly  interested  our 
party,  and  we  laughed  until  our  sides  ached.  They 
were  fooling  the  driver  of  their  automobile,  but  utterly 
unconscious  of  five  spectators  hi  the  rear.  In  fooling 
one  man,  you  are  usually  unconscious  of  several  others 
who  are  watching  you. 


FRIDAY,  MARCH  28. — The  mother  and  daughter  with 
whom  we  have  been  traveling  several  days,  Mrs.  and 
Miss  Meek,  live  fifteen  miles  off  the  railroad  between 
Durban  and  Johannesburg,  on  a  farm  of  twenty  thou- 
sand acres.  Mr.  Meek,  the  husband  and  father,  goes 


326  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

in  principally  for  sheep,  of  which  he  has  many  thousand 
head,  but  he  does  general  farming  as  well,  and  has  two 
hundred  and  fifty  natives  on  his  farms,  counting  women 
and  children.  These  live  in  small  villages  or  kraals  on 
the  land,  and  both  Mrs.  Meek  and  her  daughter  speak 
the  Kaffir  language.  Some  of  the  Kaffir  men  on  the 
Meek  farm  have  six  wives ;  the  farm  foreman  has  that 
number,  and  Mrs.  Meek  says  he  is  a  very  reliable  and 
capable  man,  in  spite  of  his  love  affairs.  The  foreman 
has  twenty-eight  children,  and  each  of  his  six  wives  lives 
in  a  different  hut.  When  he  takes  a  new  wife,  there  is 
no  marriage  ceremony ;  he  simply  invites  his  friends  to 
a  wedding  feast,  which  the  other  wives  prepare.  He 
buys  his  wives,  usually  paying  ten  head  of  cattle  each ; 
there  are  no  love  preliminaries,  except  that  occasionally 
a  young  girl  comes  to  the  foreman's  kraal,  and  remains 
until  he  takes  her  as  his  wife.  He  is  a  prosperous  man, 
and  prosperous  men  are  everywhere  popular  with  the 
girls.  The  wives  of  the  foreman  get  along  very  well 
together;  they  have  always  been  accustomed  to  the 
system  of  plural  wives,  and  do  not  seem  to  object  to  it. 
The  children  living  in  the  kraals,  Mrs.  Meek  says,  are 
very  healthy;  more  so  than  white  children  living  in 
modern  houses  in  the  same  vicinity.  The  grass-cov- 
ered huts  in  which  the  natives  live  are  less  liable  to 
leak  in  rainy  weather  than  the  houses  of  the  whites, 
which  are  almost  universally  covered  in  South  Africa 
with  corrugated  iron.  Mr.  Meek  pays  his  native 
workmen  about  $2.50  per  month,  and  board,  providing 
they  are  reliable  and  steady.  Their  board  consists  of 
a  certain  amount  of  shelled  corn ;  about  all  they  eat  is 
corn-meal  porridge,  and  their  idea  of  luxury  is  to  have 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          327 

brown  sugar  to  sprinkle  over  it.  Most  of  them  have 
gardens,  and  Mr.  Meek  loans  them  oxen  and  plows  for 
cultivating  them.  A  young  native  boy  who  herds  cat- 
tle gets  seventy-two  cents  a  month.  The  native  work- 
men employed  on  the  Meek  farm  have  their  porridge 
ground  and  cooked  by  a  native  employed  for  the  pur- 
pose, who  never  gives  them  too  much,  because  the 
work  of  grinding  corn  in  a  handmill  is  a  considerable 
task,  and  this  task  falls  to  the  cook.  The  natives  on 
the  farm  go  to  church  once  on  Sunday,  but  they  seem 
to  attend  the  services  as  a  means  of  seeing  and  being 
seen  rather  than  because  they  are  religious.  A  rail- 
road is  building  toward  Mr.  Meek's  farm,  and  lately 
he  refused  $20  an  acre  for  it.  I  am  somewhat  confused 
about  the  yield  of  corn  per  acre  in  South  Africa,  as 
the  people  always  say  a  field  yields  so  many  bags  per 
morgen ;  a  morgen  being  a  little  over  two  acres,  and 
a  bag  holding  a  little  less  than  three  bushels.  But  it 
may  be  safely  stated  that  the  yield  of  corn  in  no  part 
of  South  Africa  is  equal  to  the  yield  in  the  corn  belt  in 
our  section.  Disastrous  drouths  are  also  very  common ; 
corn  has  been  almost  a  failure  for  the  past  three  seasons. 
I  have  not  seen  a  good  field  of  corn  in  South  Africa. 
But  Mr.  Meek  is  a  very  prosperous  farmer,  because  of 
his  sheep,  cattle  and  horses.  He  also  milks  a  good 
many  cows,  and  sends  the  cream  to  the  railroad,  "five 
hours"  from  his  farm :  distances  are  always  computed 
here  by  hours,  and  not  by  miles.  Five  miles  from  his 
farm-house  is  a  country  village  without  a  railroad,  and 
there  he  does  his  "trading."  He  is  making  an  exhibit 
of  stock  at  the  Johannesburg  fair,  and  his  wife  and 
daughter  are  very  anxious  to  know  whether  they  took 


328  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

any  prizes.  .  .  .  Mr.  Meek  was  born  of  English 
parents,  but  has  never  been  to  England.  During  the 
war  he  would  not  fight  the  English,  and  he  would  not 
fight  the  Boers,  as  his  wife  is  of  Dutch  descent.  So 
he  left  home,  and  went  into  Natal.  His  wife  remained 
on  the  farm  throughout  the  war,  and  was  constantly 
surrounded  by  troops  of  the  contending  forces.  Once, 
when  they  had  an  artillery  battle,  the  shells  flew  over 
her  house  for  hours ;  some  of  the  shells  fell  in  her  door- 
yard,  and,  exploding,  tore  down  fences  and  outhouses. 
Her  children  were  away  at  school  when  the  war  began, 
and  did  not  come  home  for  eighteen  months.  Mrs. 
Meek  managed  to  smuggle  a  good  deal  of  the  farm 
live-stock  into  Natal,  where  her  husband  received  it 
and  cared  for  it  on  land  rented  for  the  purpose.  In 
smuggling  sheep  and  cattle  out  of  the  country,  Mrs. 
Meek's  main  reliance  was  the  native  foreman,  the 
wretch  who  has  six  wives;  he  was  as  faithful  and  ef- 
ficient as  it  is  possible  for  a  servant  to  be.  Occasionally 
the  English  talked  of  sending  Mrs.  Meek  to  the  con- 
centration camp,  and  burning  her  house,  but  she  was 
always  able  to  coax  them  out  of  the  notion.  .  .  . 
She  has  a  native  cook,  a  man,  and  pays  him  a  dollar 
a  week.  The  native  women  do  her  washing  and  iron- 
ing, and  do  it  very  well,  for  a  dollar  a  week ;  in  addi- 
tion, they  clean  and  sweep.  .  .  .  Mrs.  Meek  has 
never  heard  of  a  divorce  among  the  natives  on  the  farm 
where  she  lives.  The  men  of  some  native  tribes  are 
married  in  church,  by  a  negro  preacher ;  in  such  a  case, 
they  are  compelled  to  pay  two  shillings  for  a  license, 
but  this  civilized  plan  is  so  expensive  and  troublesome 
that  it  is  not  popular.  Besides,  when  a  man  is  married 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          329 

in  church,  and  pays  two  shillings  for  a  license,  he  is 
liable  to  arrest  if  he  marries  another  wife. 


SATURDAY,  MARCH  29. — We  are  at  the  far-famed 
Victoria  Falls  today,  and  traveled  here  from  Bulawayo 
at  the  terrific  pace  of  fourteen  miles  an  hour.  The 
conductor  on  the  train  wore  a  natty  white  suit,  but  did 
not  make  up  the  beds,  though  he  sold  the  bedding 
tickets ;  the  actual  chambermaid  was  a  very  black  na- 
tive boy.  I  do  not  understand  why  sleeping-car  por- 
ters are  permitted  on  some  night  trains,  and  not  on 
others.  ...  I  was  in  a  sleeping  compartment  with 
a  captain  in  the  English  army,  who  is  on  his  way  to  a 
station  hi  the  interior,  seventy  miles  from  Victoria 
Falls.  There,  in  company  with  another  army  officer, 
he  will  rule  a  district,  assisted  by  a  few  native  police. 
He  says  hunting  is  excellent  where  he  is  going,  and  he 
showed  me  his  assortment  of  guns ;  including  one  spe- 
cially intended  for  elephants.  .  .  .  The  country 
between  Bulawayo  and  Victoria  Falls  (280  miles)  looks 
superior  to  that  between  Mafeking  and  Bulawayo,  but 
we  ran  into  the  inevitable  desert,  and  suffered  consider- 
ably from  dust.  As  we  approached  the  falls  the  coun- 
try became  rougher,  and  an  hour  before  we  finally  left 
the  tram  we  could  see  a  cloud  of  mist  hanging  over  the 
great  cataract.  When  the  train  stopped  at  Victoria 
Falls  station — the  railroad  runs  four  hundred  miles  be- 
yond this  point — we  could  hear  the  roar  which  will  be 
hi  our  ears  constantly  until  we  leave  next  Wednesday  at 
1  p.  M.  .  .  .  There  is  no  town  at  the  Falls ;  only  a 


330  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

hotel,  a  rambling,  comfortable  affair  which  can  accom- 
modate two  hundred  people.  The  charge  is  $5.25  per 
day  each.  Five  miles  away  is  the  town  of  Livingstone, 
capital  of  Northwest  Rhodesia,  but  it  has  only  a  hand- 
ful of  inhabitants.  From  my  room  at  the  hotel  I  can 
see  the  famous  railroad  bridge  which  spans  the  Zambesi 
river  just  below  the  falls,  and  passing  my  window  are 
wet  and  bedraggled  people  who  have  been  through  the 
Rain  Forest.  In  order  to  see  the  falls  to  best  advan- 
tage, it  is  necessary  to  go  through  the  Rain  Forest  and 
get  a  ducking.  Many  of  those  who  arrived  on  our 
train  at  7  o'clock  this  morning  will  return  at  1  o'clock 
this  afternoon,  thus  avoiding  a  delay  here  of  four  days ; 
after  the  train  leaves  this  afternoon,  there  will  not  be 
another  train  until  next  Wednesday.  ...  I  doubt 
if  anyone  has  ever  seen,  or  ever  will  see,  all  of  Victoria 
Falls.  It  may  only  be  seen  in  pieces,  and  the  spray 
will  always  hide  much  of  the  great  spectacle  from  the 
most  industrious  visitor;  whereas  Niagara  may  be 
seen  in  a  single  glance,  in  all  its  majesty.  Victoria 
Falls  is  a  mile  long ;  about  twice  as  long  as  Niagara, 
and  four  hundred  feet  high,  whereas  Niagara  makes  a 
leap  of  only  162  feet.  .  .  .  Every  time  I  looked  at 
Victoria  Falls,  there  was  usually  an  Englishman  present 
to  inquire:  "Well,  what  about  it?"  Meaning,  "How 
does  it  compare  with  your  Niagara?"  The  two  falls 
are  not  alike,  and  cannot  be  compared ;  both  are  won- 
derful in  a  different  way.  Niagara  is  situated  within  a 
few  miles  of  Buffalo,  New  York,  one  of  the  largest  and 
busiest  cities  of  the  United  States,  and  surrounded  by 
a  fertile  and  well-settled  country.  Niagara  is  in  the 
center  of  parks,  hotels,  mills,  street  railways,  and  civil- 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.    331 

ization  of  many  other  varieties;  an  American  bride 
who  is  not  taken  to  Niagara  on  her  wedding  trip,  may 
get  a  divorce  on  that  ground,  if  the  fact  is  presented  to 
a  court  of  proper  jurisdiction,  but  Victoria  is  in  a  wild 
country  in  the  mountains  of  Africa,  seventeen  hundred 
miles  from  Capetown,  and  Capetown  is  nineteen  days 
from  London,  and  twenty-nine  from  New  York.  Ni- 
agara makes  a  straight  leap,  whereas  Victoria  is  more 
of  a  cataract.  At  Niagara,  a  great  solid  wall  of  sea- 
green  water  pours  over  a  precipice ;  here,  the  force  of 
the  fall  is  broken  in  many  places  by  huge  rocks — at 
one  place  the  fall  is  separated  by  a  wooded  island,  and 
there  are  many  other  smaller  breaks.  At  Niagara,  the 
river  above  the  fall  is  clean  and  swift,  with  no  rocks. 
At  Victoria,  the  river  above  the  fall  is  broken  into  a 
thousand  different  islands ;  it  looks  like  a  shallow  river 
overflowing  in  brush  and  timber  land  after  a  torrent  of 
rain,  and  much  of  the  water  pouring  over  the  falls  is 
yellow  and  dirty.  .  .  .  Victoria  Falls  is  in  shape 
like  a  huge  capital  T ;  the  falls  represented  by  the  top 
of  the  letter,  and  the  outlet  by  the  stem.  The  water 
pours  into  a  great  pool  a  mile  long,  and  escapes  by  a 
narrow  outlet  not  more  than  150  feet  wide  in  places. 
The  water  pours  into  the  pool  with  a  roar  that  may  be 
heard  twenty-eight  miles,  and  stirs  up  a  spray  that 
causes  constant  rain  to  fall  in  its  immediate  territory. 
This  spray  is  so  great  that  it  looks  like  a  cloud  against 
the  sky,  and  may  be  seen  before  you  hear  the  roar  of 
the  falls.  .  .  .  Yet  the  water  from  this  great  pool 
escapes  almost  as  quietly  as  water  from  an  undis- 
turbed lake.  After  the  water  escapes  from  the  great 
pool  below  the  falls,  through  the  stem  of  the  letter  T, 


332  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

it  makes  a  turn  at  right  angles,  and  sweeps  around  like 
the  capital  letter  U ;  yet  there  is  no  great  disturbance 
in  any  part  of  the  outlet  from  the  falls.  At  Niagara, 
the  whirlpool  rapids  is  one  of  the  world's  wonders ;  at 
Victoria,  the  river  a  few  hundred  feet  below  the  falls 
seems  to  be  navigable — it  does  not  look  unlike  the 
Waunganui  river  in  New  Zealand,  down  which  we 
traveled  in  boats.  I  believe  one  of  the  Waunganui 
river  boats  could  come  up  the  gorge  below  Victoria 
Falls.  .  .  .  Every  visitor,  after  looking  at  the  wall 
of  water  pouring  over  the  falls,  asks  the  same  question : 
"What  becomes  of  the  water?"  Dr.  Livingstone,  who 
discovered  the  falls,  asked  the  question.  I  was  with 
a  party  of  four  when  I  first  saw  the  falls,  and  all  agreed 
that,  in  places,  the  river  a  few  hundred  feet  below  was 
not  more  than  fifty  feet  wide,  although  the  guidebooks 
say  the  width  is  greater.  And  this  narrow  river  is  not 
greatly  disturbed  a  few  yards  below  the  great  Victoria 
Falls ;  there  is  no  swirling,  leaping  rapids,  as  may  be 
seen  four  or  five  miles  below  Niagara.  When  looking 
at  Victoria  Falls,  very  much  more  water  seems  to  pour 
over  the  brink  than  at  Niagara ;  when  looking  at  the 
river  below,  you  are  disposed  to  think  the  quantity  is 
much  less — as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  quantity  is  about 
the  same,  with  Niagara  a  little  in  the  lead.  ...  At 
Niagara,  you  may  see  the  falls  from  an  electric  car, 
and  go  down  the  Niagara  river  on  top  of  the  hills,  and 
return  beside  the  whirlpool  rapids ;  but  seeing  Victoria 
is  much  more  difficult.  For  nearly  a  mile  you  walk  in 
what  seems  a  pouring  rain,  but  which  is  actually  spray 
from  the  falls.  Most  visitors  put  on  old  clothes  at 
the  hotel,  and  quietly  submit  to  the  ducking ;  on  their 


I  ! 

3      a 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.    333 

return,  they  take  a  hot  bath,  put  on  dry  clothing,  and 
sit  on  the  verandas,  and  talk  about  the  wonderful  trip. 
During  this  walk  of  half  a  mile  in  pouring  rain  from 
the  spray  of  the  falls,  you  pass  through  what  is  called 
the  Rain  Forest.  As  rain  is  always  falling,  the  vege- 
tation is  luxuriant,  but  not  as  luxuriant  as  I  had  ex- 
pected. The  path  through  the  rain  forest  is  always 
wet ;  sometimes  you  step  into  water  over  your  shoe- 
tops,  and  the  trees  are  always  dripping;  you  cannot 
see  the  falls  to  the  best  advantage  without  passing 
through  this  Rain  Forest,  and  you  cannot  make  this  trip 
without  becoming  as  wet  as  though  you  had  plunged 
into  a  lake  with  your  clothes  on.  During  this  trip 
you  frequently  stand  not  a  hundred  feet  from  the  falls, 
and  the  spray  coming  up  from  the  pool  is  so  thick  that 
you  cannot  see  a  hundred  feet  beyond  you.  And  all 
the  time  the  great  roar  is  hi  your  ears,  and  the  rain 
shifting  with  the  wind.  The  sun  nearly  always  shines 
here,  and  on  this  trip  along  the  edge  of  the  falls  you 
may  see  a  thousand  rainbows ;  I  am  sure  I  saw  that 
many  today.  .  .  .  The  Rain  Forest  is  not  down  in 
the  canyon,  as  one  might  imagine ;  it  is  on  a  level  with 
the  top  of  the  falls,  and  sometimes  not  a  hundred  feet 
away  from  it.  Imagine  a  street  one  mile  long,  and 
400  feet  below  sidewalks  on  either  side.  One  sidewalk 
represents  the  Rain  Forest.  Opposite  you  is  Victoria 
Falls  pouring  into  the  chasm  below,  and  causing  a 
spray  which  shifts  with  the  wind,  and  not  only  drenches 
you,  but  hides  much  of  your  view.  The  Rain  Forest 
is  simply  the  other  side  of  the  falls,  and,  to  travel  its 
entire  length,  you  must  make  a  detour,  and  cross  the 
narrow  outlet  of  the  falls  chasm  by  means  of  the  rail 


334  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

road  bridge.  .  .  .  The  bridge  below  the  falls  is 
the  highest  hi  the  world,  and  hi  walking  across  it  you 
are  420  feet  above  the  water  in  the  gorge  below.  When 
it  was  being  built,  hi  1903-5,  it  was  frequently  de- 
scribed in  the  magazines  as  one  of  the  great  wonders 
of  engineering.  The  bridge  is  of  one  span  only,  of  the 
cantilever  type,  and  610  feet  hi  length.  From  the 
bridge,  the  hotel,  a  half-mile  away,  and  near  the  edge 
of  the  canyon,  is  in  plain  view.  The  bridge-tender  is  a 
negro  boy,  and  visitors  pay  him  a  shilling  each  to  cross 
and  return.  .  .  .  The  present  is  known  as  the  wet 
season,  and,  the  Zambesi  river  being  at  a  high  stage, 
the  falls  is  rather  more  gorgeous  now  than  it  will  be 
later  on,  when  the  river  is  lower.  The  Zambesi  is  one 
of  the  great  rivers  of  Africa,  and  is  referred  to  in  a  big 
way  as  we  refer  to  the  Mississippi  or  Missouri ;  citizens 
here  frequently  refer  to  "the  vast  territory  south  of 
the  Zambesi,"  as  the  Mississippi  and  Missouri  rivers 
are  dividing-lines  in  the  United  States.  .  .  .  The 
falls  were  discovered  by  Dr.  David  Livingstone  in  1854, 
and  named  in  honor  of  Queen  Victoria.  Livingstone 
died  in  Africa,  of  the  fever.  He  had  faithful  friends 
among  his  native  followers,  and  when  they  found  him 
dead,  they  embalmed  his  body  as  best  they  could,  and 
carried  it  fifteen  hundred  miles  to  the  "sea,  whence  it 
was  taken  to  England,  and  buried  in  Westminster  Ab- 
bey. .  .  .  The  hills  around  Victoria  Falls  are  cov- 
ered with  a  growth  of  inferior  timber,  and  this  continues 
until  the  end  of  the  railway  is  reached,  400  miles  to 
the  north.  .  .  .  It  is  estimated  that  nearly  a  mill- 
ion and  a  quarter  of  visitors  see  Niagara  every  year ; 
barely  two  thousand  see  Victoria  Falls  annually,  owing 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          335 

to  its  location  far  in  the  interior  of  Africa.  In  order 
to  reach  the  falls  from  the  sea  at  Durban,  we  were  com- 
pelled to  travel  five  days  and  nights  by  railroad  train. 
.  .  .  It  is  said  the  fall  is  420  feet.  It  does  not  seem 
so  great,  because  the  lower  part  is  hidden  hi  the  spray 
arising  from  the  chasm  into  which  the  water  drops. 
But  while  you  cannot  appreciate  the  unusual  fall,  you 
can  easily  appreciate  that  the  fall  is  a  mile  wide,  al- 
though broken  all  along  the  edge  by  islands  and  huge 
rocks.  In  thinking  of  Victoria  Falls  don't  imagine  it  a 
solid  sheet  of  water  a  mile  long,  falling  420  feet.  The 
falls  are  broken  into  a  thousand  different  streams,  and 
some  of  them  strike  rocks  in  the  wall  and  break  into 
spray.  ...  I  was  not  greatly  moved  when  I  first 
saw  the  falls,  but  felt  that  the  sight  was  worth  coming  a 
long  distance  to  see.  Pictures  of  the  falls  are  deceiv- 
ing, as  are  pictures  of  everything.  In  taking  pictures 
of  Victoria  Falls,  photographers  look  for  the  fine  views ; 
the  commoner  aspects  of  the  cataract  are  rarely  pho- 
tographed. I  recall  a  noted  photograph  of  the  falls 
which  is  one  of  the  most  majestic  things  I  have  ever 
seen  in  pictures ;  but  hi  order  to  take  it,  the  photog- 
rapher was  compelled  to  climb  down  a  cliff  by  means 
of  ropes;  so  the  picture  is  really  unnatural.  .  .  . 
There  are  thirty  or  forty  guests  at  this  hotel,  and  I 
have  talked  with  most  of  them.  They  all  seem  to  be 
well  satisfied  with  the  trip,  but  none  of  them  rave  about 
the  falls  as  do  the  writers  hi  the  guidebooks.  .  .  . 
No  one  seems  to  know  the  depth  of  water  in  the  narrow 
gorge  through  which  the  water  from  the  falls  is  dis- 
charged ;  soundings  of  150  feet  have  been  made  with- 
out touching  bottom. 


336  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

SUNDAY,  MARCH  30. — Today  we  again  walked  to  the 
Falls  from  the  hotel,  a  distance  of  half  a  mile.  Cap- 
tain Mosley,  of  the  British  army,  who  shared  a  sleep- 
ing apartment  with  me  on  the  train  coming  here,  ac- 
companied us.  The  captain  is  changing  his  station, 
and  has  with  him  four  hunting  dogs  and  a  black  boy 
who  has  been  his  cook  seven  years.  This  black  boy 
accompanied  us  on  the  walk,  to  exercise  the  dogs,  and 
on  the  way,  the  dogs  in  ranging  about,  encountered  a 
bunch  of  baboons.  The  captain  and  black  boy  ran 
into  the  woods,  toward  the  big  noise  the  fight  stirred 
up,  and  I  followed  them,  arriving  just  in  time  to  see 
the  dogs  whipped,  and  the  baboons  scamper  up  the 
trees.  The  captain  says  the  dogs  would  have  been 
killed  had  they  found  full-grown  male  baboons,  in- 
stead of  small-sized  females  and  young  ones.  Baboons 
are  a  great  nuisance  all  over  this  section.  They  have 
almost  human  intelligence,  and  are  very  adroit  thieves. 
I  have  been  told  that  baboons  will  attack  a  woman,  if 
they  find  her  alone,  but  that  they  have  great  respect 
for  men,  whom  they  associate  with  a  gun.  Near  the 
hotel  is  a  camp  of  soldiers,  and  they  have  a  tame 
baboon.  They  also  have  a  tame  deer  of  a  variety  not 
much  larger  than  a  jack  rabbit.  The  soldiers  pick  up 
the  deer,  and  stand  it  on  a  table.  There  are  dozens 
of  different  kinds  of  buck  here,  ranging  from  the  size 
of  a  rabbit  to  the  size  of  an  ox.  The  soldiers  told  me 
that  plenty  of  reed  buck  may  be  found  within  four 
miles  of  the  Falls,  but  this  is  the  closed  season,  and  one 
of  the  duties  of  the  soldiers  is  to  protect  the  game. 
Last  night  one  of  the  soldiers  saw  a  leopard  prowling 
around  the  camp.  A  few  days  ago  a  lion  was  killed 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          337 

within  a  few  miles  of  the  falls ;  the  man  who  killed  it 
brought  in  the  skull  and  hide,  and  received  a  bounty 
of  $7.50.  Lions  destroy  a  great  deal  of  game,  and  the 
government  pays  for  their  destruction.  The  soldiers 
patrol  a  district  100  miles  square,  and  say  they  rarely 
hear  of  lions  attacking  a  man ;  they  hear  lions  nearly 
every  night,  but  rarely  see  them,  as  the  animals  are  as 
sly  as  our  foxes.  The  corporal  with  whom  I  talked 
says  that  during  an  experience  of  seven  years  in  this 
section,  he  never  personally  knew  a  lion  to  attack  man. 
He  has  heard  of  such  cases,  but  you  all  know  how  com- 
mon it  is  to  hear  stories  that  are  not  true.  .  .  .  The 
British  captain  with  whom  I  spend  a  good  deal  of  time, 
walking  about,  or  sitting  on  the  hotel  veranda,  is  one 
of  the  quietest  men  I  have  ever  known.  He  has  always 
lived  among  soldiers,  having  been  born  in  Benares, 
India,  where  his  father  was  an  officer  in  the  English 
army.  He  lived  there  until  he  was  twelve  years  old. 
Benares  is  as  old  as  Babylon ;  when  old  Babylon  was 
a  flourishing  city,  Benares  was  in  existence,  and  has 
remained  a  city  continuously  ever  since,  while  Babylon 
has  been  completely  destroyed,  and  its  location  almost 
forgotten.  The  captain  tells  of  his  experiences,  when 
I  question  him,  but  is  very  reticent  in  speaking  of  the 
numerous  forays  in  which  he  has  engaged.  I  have  no 
doubt  he  has  had  many  thrilling  experiences  as  a  big- 
game  hunter,  but  I  cannot  induce  him  to  say  much 
about  them.  .  .  .  Another  Englishman,  named 
Green,  who  is  with  us  a  good  deal,  talks  enough  for 
half  a  dozen.  He  is  a  business  man  at  Sheffield,  Eng- 
land, and  says  that  in  case  of  war  between  England  and 
Germany,  the  United  States  should  assist  England. 


338  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

Indeed,  Mr.  Green  thinks  the  United  States  should 
even  now  present  England  with  a  battleship,  and  assist 
in  "bluffing"  Germany,  as  New  Zealand  has  done. 
One  of  the  ladies  present  asked  me : 

"What  are  England  and  Germany  quarreling 
about?" 

"They  have  no  quarrel,"  I  replied.  "They  are 
simply  bullies  strutting  around  and  daring  each  other 
to  fight.  I  have  forgotten  the  exact  number,  but  we 
will  say  for  illustration  that  England  had  a  hundred 
battleships,  and  Germany  fifty.  Germany  ordered 
two  additional  battleships  built,  and  England  imme- 
diately ordered  four  new  dreadnaughts.  And  this 
ridiculous  proceeding  has  been  kept  up  for  years; 
England  is  pledged  to  build  two  warships  for  every 
one  built  by  Germany.  The  two  countries  have  noth- 
ing to  quarrel  about,  but  the  English  declare  they 
must  have  twice  as  many  battleships  as  Germany,  and 
the  Germans  say  they  must  have  as  many  battleships 
as  England.  And  an  apparently  intelligent  English- 
man named  Green  says  that  in  case  this  foolish  con- 
test finally  results  in  war  between  the  two  countries, 
the  United  States  should  quit  agriculture,  and  mining, 
and  manufacturing,  and  trade,  and  assist  England, 
simply  because  the  Americans  and  English  read  the 
same  language,  although  they  understand  each  other 
with  difficulty  when  they  talk." 

The  Victoria  Falls  Hotel  is  owned  by  the  railroad 
company,  and  when  you  visit  the  falls  you  will  have  no 
fault  to  find  with  it.  Two  hundred  guests  could  be 
easily  entertained,  but  I  doubt  if  there  are  two  dozen 
here  now,  as  this  is  the  dull  season.  Fall  begins  in 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          339 

this  section  with  April,  and  visitors  are  most  numer- 
ous during  the  cool  weather.  The  most  terrible  cold- 
weather  story  I  have  heard  here  is  that  ice  sometimes 
forms  at  night  during  the  terrific  cold  prevailing  in 
July  and  August.  .  .  .  The  present  temporary 
buildings  of  the  Victoria  Falls  Hotel  are  to  be  replaced 
shortly  with  permanent  buildings  to  cost  $150,000. 
But  in  the  present  temporary  buildings,  guests  willing 
to  pay  the  price  may  have  rooms  with  private  bath, 
and  during  the  worst  weather  the  nights  are  cool. 
My  bed  is  covered  with  a  mosquito  netting,  as  is  the 
universal  rule  here,  instead  of  putting  netting  at  the 
windows  and  doors,  but  I  have  heard  no  mosquitos. 
.  .  .  The  Mr.  Green  referred  to  above  has  been  look- 
ing at  land  in  Africa  with  a  view  of  buying  for  friends 
in  England.  English  people  have  a  great  deal  of  cold, 
damp,  foggy  weather,  and  they  hear  much  of  the  glori- 
ous sunshine  of  Africa ;  so  Mr.  Green's  report  as  to  the 
possibilities  of  farming  here  will  influence  a  good  many. 
His  report  will  not  be  very  favorable.  He  has  spent 
weeks  in  the  different  farming  districts,  and  says  he 
found  farmers  suffering  from  a  three-years  drouth.  One 
man  had  a  splendid  prospect  for  corn,  and  thought  the 
harvest  would  make  him  rich.  Suddenly  the  hot  winds 
came  on,  and  in  a  few  days  the  crop  was  ruined.  This 
man  offered  his  farm  of  7,000  acres  for  sale  at  a  dollar 
an  acre ;  Mr.  Green  says  he  can  buy  millions  of  acres 
at  that  price,  but  will  not  advise  his  friends  to  take  it, 
as  the  rainfall  is  uncertain,  and  the  country  infested 
with  ants,  ticks,  flies  dangerous  to  stock,  etc.  Possi- 
bly these  pests  will  disappear  in  time ;  certain  districts 
formerly  dangerous  are  now  free  from  the  cattle-fly. 


340  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

.  .  .  Mr.  Green  says  that  in  many  of  the  best  sec- 
tions of  England,  agricultural  land  can  be  bought  at 
$50  an  acre ;  the  choicest  at  from  $100  to  $150  per  acre. 
This  statement  particularly  interested  me  because  that 
is  about  the  range  at  which  land  sells  in  the  district 
where  I  live.  I  had  always  imagined  that  land  in  Eng- 
land sold  at  much  higher  prices  than  in  Atchison 
county,  Kansas,  fifteen  hundred  miles  west  of  the  sea 
at  New  York.  .  .  .  Mr.  Green  says  that  last 
January,  in  his  section  of  England,  there  were  only 
five  days  without  rain ;  last  summer,  he  saw  only  four- 
teen bright  days.  There  is  plenty  of  sunshine  and 
plenty  of  dry  weather  in  Africa,  but  Mr.  Green  says 
he  will  not  recommend  the  country  to  his  neighbors. 


MONDAY,  MARCH  31. — This  morning  a  dozen  guests 
from  the  hotel,  including  the  two  travelers  from  Kan- 
sas, took  a  boat  trip  of  fifteen  or  twenty  miles  on  the 
Zambesi  river  above  the  falls.  After  a  walk  of  half  an 
hour  we  embarked  in  a  large  gasoline  launch,  and  as- 
cended the  river  until  about  noon,  when  we  went  ashore 
on  an  island,  and  explored  it  until  lunch  was  ready  at 
12 : 30.  A  Hindu  servant,  with  a  native  helper,  ac- 
companied us  from  the  hotel,  carrying  two  large  ham- 
pers, and  they  prepared  tea,  and  served  an  excellent 
lunch.  .  .  .  The  Zambesi  river  above  the  falls  is 
a  wide,  rambling  affair,  full  of  islands,  and  so  shallow 
that  the  course  of  our  launch  was  marked  for  several 
miles.  When  we  finally  landed,  it  was  because  we 
could  go  no  further  on  account  of  a  rapids.  The  river 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          34 1 

contains  more  water  than  the  Missouri  or  Mississippi 
river,  I  should  say,  but  is  not  navigable.  At  places 
it  is  said  to  be  a  mile  and  three-quarters  wide.  A  river 
in  this  dry  country  is  a  novelty,  and  people  make  long 
excursions  to  see  the  Zambesi.  On  either  side  there 
is  a  line  of  hills  which  do  not  look  unlike  the  hills  bor- 
dering the  Missouri  river,  but  the  valley  is  covered 
with  trees  and  brush,  as  was  the  case  in  the  Missouri 
"bottom"  fifty  years  ago.  On  the  Zambesi,  the  river 
valley  seems  to  shift  from  one  side  to  the  other,  instead 
of  being  confined  always  to  the  east  side,  as  is  the  case 
with  the  Missouri  river  in  its  entire  course.  The  trees 
along  the  Zambesi  are  of  a  stunted  variety ;  along  the 
African  railways,  a  fairly  large  tree  attracts  almost  as 
much  attention  as  a  river.  The  African  trees  are  not 
large  and  graceful,  as  are  our  maples,  oaks,  walnuts, 
etc.  One  of  the  wonders  here  is  a  cream-of -tartar 
tree  which  measures  ninety-eight  feet  in  circumfer- 
ence. It  is  actually  a  dozen  stunted  trees  growing  in 
a  bunch,  but  it  is  regarded  as  a  wonder,  and  every 
visitor  carves  his  initials  in  the  bark.  .  .  .  Hippo- 
potami are  quite  dangerous  above  the  falls,  as  they 
upset  boats  in  a  spirit  of  mischief.  They  are  being 
shot,  and  two  were  killed  the  day  before  we  went  up 
the  river.  Some  time  ago  four  tourists  rowed  on  the 
river,  in  small  boats.  Hippos  upset  both  boats,  and 
two  of  the  tourists  went  over  the  falls ;  the  other  two 
drifted  against  islands,  and  were  rescued.  It  was  a 
man  and  a  woman  who  were  rescued,  strangers  to  each 
other,  but  the  tragedy  made  them  friends,  and  a  few 
days  ago  they  were  married.  .  .  .  There  are  also 
crocodiles  in  the  river,  and  they  are  also  a  nuisance. 


342  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

The  man  who  ran  the  launch  lives  on  the  hotel  farm, 
and  says  that  since  August  last,  crocodiles  have  cap- 
tured twenty  of  the  farm  cattle.  The  cattle  go  to  the 
river  to  drink,  or  to  stand  in  the  water  during  the  heat 
of  the  day,  and  the  crocodiles,  some  of  which  are  eigh- 
teen feet  long,  drag  them  in.  One  of  the  soldiers  from 
the  camp  near  the  hotel  shot  a  crocodile  while  we  were 
on  the  river.  ...  I  heard  a  curious  discussion 
•  while  we  were  eating  luncheon  on  the  island.  An  Eng- 
lishman, a  church  member,  had  great  respect  for  mis- 
sionaries. All  the  others  were  residents  of  Africa,  and 
their  testimony  was  against  them.  One  man  said  the 
superintendent  of  a  penitentiary  told  him  recently  that 
ninety  per  cent  of  the  convicts  had  been  "converted" 
by  missionaries.  A  mining  man  testified  that  negroes 
who  had  been  under  the  influence  of  missionaries  were 
nearly  always  less  honest  and  less  useful  than  natives 
who  had  had  no  such  experience.  A  woman  who  lived 
on  a  South-African  farm  of  20,000  acres  gave  similar 
testimony,  as  did  an  army  man  who  had  served  in 
Africa  since  the  Boer  war.  Wherever  I  have  gone,  I 
have  heard  the  missionary  experiment  denounced  by 
white  residents.  I  am  taking  no  part  in  the  contro- 
versy, but  record  as  a  remarkable  fact  that  in  Africa, 
China,  Japan,  India,  etc.,  the  testimony  of  white  resi- 
dents is  nearly  always  against  the  missionary  experi- 
ment. Every  traveler  remarks  this,  and  comments 
on  it.  ...  This  morning  at  3  o'clock  a  rifle-shot 
rang  out  back  of  the  hotel ;  one  of  the  soldiers  in  the 
camp  saw  a  leopard  prowling  around,  and  shot  at  it. 
A  photographer  living  near  the  hotel  has  a  cow,  a  calf 
and  a  donkey,  and  every  night  these  are  carefully 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          343 

locked  up  in  pole  fences  that  are  leopard-proof.  .  .  . 
This  morning,  when  I  awoke,  I  found  a  gentle  rain  fall- 
ing in  front  of  my  room  at  the  hotel.  It  turned  out 
to  be  mist  from  the  falls.  This  mist  shifts  with  the 
wind,  and  in  whatever  direction  we  walk  we  run  into 
it  occasionally.  At  points  quite  distant  from  the  falls 
it  amounts  to  only  a  mist,  or  a  very  gentle  rain,  but 
at  other  places  there  is  a  heavy  downpour.  Along 
certain  walls  of  the  canyon  below  the  cataract,  dozens 
of  waterfalls  may  be  seen,  and  these  are  fed  by  the 
mists  rising  from  the  falls.  There  is  seldom  an  hour 
during  the  day  that  a  rainbow  may  not  be  seen  from 
the  hotel  veranda.  During  moonlight  nights  a  lunar 
rainbow  may  be  seen  which,  experts  say,  shows  one 
color  not  seen  in  the  rainbow  in  daylight.  ...  I 
was  looking  over  the  hotel  register  today,  and  ran 
across  this  entry:  "Mrs.  Annie  E.  McConnell,  U.  S. 
A."  I  made  some  remark  about  finding  a  visitor  from 
home,  and  the  clerk  said,  laughingly : 

"That  woman  became  lost,  and  fourteen  of  us  spent 
half  of  one  night  hunting  her." 

The  paths  around  the  hotel  and  falls  are  very  well 
defined,  but  travelers  may  easily  become  confused  after 
nightfall. 


TUESDAY,  APRIL  1. — On  a  public  desk  at  the  Vic- 
toria Falls  Hotel  is  kept  a  book  marked  "Suggestions." 
Visitors  are  expected  to  write  in  it  how  they  liked  the 
falls,  and  suggest  improvements  of  the  service.  I  sug- 
gest that  the  average  visitor  does  not  care  to  spend 
four  days  here,  as  he  is  now  compelled  to  do.  I  have 


344  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

found  the  last  two  days  hanging  heavily  on  my  hands. 
The  hotel  at  the  falls  is  excellent,  considering  that  it 
is  a  long  way  from  its  source  of  supplies,  but  trains  are 
slow,  and  the  cars  dusty  and  crowded.  The  average 
train  is  composed  of  compartment  cars,  with  a  corri- 
dor running  along  one  side.  These  corridors  are  so 
narrow  that  two  persons  cannot  pass  in  them,  and  it  is 
quite  a  task  to  go  through  a  tram  in  reaching  the  din- 
ing-car. I  have  never  in  my  life  seen  such  dirty  cars 
as  they  have  in  South  Africa,  but  this  is  partly  owing 
to  the  terrible  dust  which  prevails  everywhere;  an- 
other explanation  is  that,  as  a  rule,  one  porter  is  ex- 
pected to  clean  all  the  cars,  and  in  some  cases  there 
is  no  porter.  But  the  trainmen  are  always  polite,  and 
the  tracks  good.  The  dining-cars  would  be  satis- 
factory were  they  not  overcrowded.  Traveling  in 
South  Africa  has  been  easier  than  I  expected,  and  the 
hotels  better,  but  some  of  the  dust  in  the  railway  cars 
might  be  easily  removed ;  the  addition  of  one  Kaffir 
and  one  broom  to  each  train  would  prove  a  great  help. 
.  .  .  Near  the  railway  station  live  two  men  who 
deal  in  curios.  Both  are  hunters,  and  both  are  inter- 
esting, and  I  spend  a  good  deal  of  time  with  them; 
but  they  hate  each  other  in  a  way  that  is  scandalous. 
There  never  was  such  a  thing  as  rivals  hi  business  get- 
ting along.  They  try  hard  not  .to  say  anything  against 
each  other,  but  their  enmity  crops  out  in  every  con- 
versation. One  of  them  is  married,  and  has  his  wife 
and  baby  here,  and  a  bishop  will  arrive  tomorrow  to 
baptize  the  baby.  The  other  man  is  a  bachelor,  and 
is  trying  hard  to  catch  a  leopard  while  I  am  here,  in 
an  American  steel  trap.  Leopards  prowl  about  the 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          345 

hotel  every  night,  and  several  hunters  have  told  me 
that  a  leopard  is  a  more  dangerous  animal  than  a  lion. 
A  leopard  is  like  a  bulldog :  he  hasn't  sense  enough  to 
know  about  danger.  .  .  .  The  dreaded  tsetse-fly 
is  found  in  this  vicinity,  and  cases  of  sleeping  sickness 
are  not  unknown.  I  had  always  imagined  that  a  man 
suffering  with  sleeping  sickness  became  drowsy,  and 
slept  a*  great  deal,  but  residents  say  that,  while  the 
patient  is  drowsy,  he  cannot  sleep,  and  is  very  restless. 
They  describe  sleeping  sickness  as  resembling  con- 
sumption in  many  ways.  ...  In  the  vicinity  of 
the  curio  shop  is  a  police  camp,  in  charge  of  a  corporal. 
The  police  patrol  this  district,  and  this  morning  I  saw 
a  white  soldier  start  out  on  a  trek  to  last  two  weeks. 
He  rode  a  mule,  as  horses  do  not  thrive  hi  this  country. 
Two  pack  donkeys  were  led  by  two  natives;  one  a 
cook,  and  the  other  an  enlisted  police  officer.  The  two 
natives  will  walk  during  the  entire  journey,  and  one  of 
them  will  carry  a  gun.  The  patrol  officer  told  me  he 
would  travel  about  eighteen  miles  a  day,  starting  every 
morning  about  five,  resting  from  nine  to  three,  and  then 
traveling  from  three  until  nightfall.  He  rarely  makes 
more  than  three  miles  an  hour,  as  the  donkeys  are  slow, 
and  the  sand  deep.  Wherever  you  walk  here,  you  are 
compelled  to  wade  through  sand;  sand  is  the  soil  in 
most  parts  of  Africa.  .  .  .  The  patrol  officer  calls 
at  every  house  he  encounters,  and  asks  the  owner  to 
report  any  disorder  hi  his  neighborhood.  The  patrol 
officer  did  not  carry  a  tent,  and  I  asked  him  why. 
"Because,"  he  answered,  "we  don't  need  it ;  there  will 
be  no  rain."  After  the  short  rainy  season,  the  wel- 
come patter  of  rain  is  not  heard  for  nine  months.  .  .  . 


346  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

The  engineer  who  attends  to  the  electric-light  plant 
at  the  Victoria  Falls  Hotel  is  an  intelligent  young  fel- 
low who,  with  a  brother,  tried  farming  in  a  remote 
district  in  Rhodesia.  They  are  about  starving ;  they 
would  have  starved  had  not  this  brother  gone  to  work. 
The  other  brother  lives  alone  on  the  farm,  and  at  in- 
tervals comes  to  the  hotel  for  supplies  provided  by  his 
brother.  They  will  eventually  desert  their  farm,  with- 
out much  doubt.  .  .  .  The  young  soldiers  at  the 
police  camp  are  industrious  hunters,  and  one  of  them 
says  he  lately  killed  a  crocodile  on  the  railroad  bridge 
which  crosses  the  Zambesi  river  below  the  falls.  Croco- 
diles often  travel  considerable  distances  from  the  river ; 
in  returning  to  water,  this  one  by  accident  struck  the 
railroad  track,  and  was  following  it  across  the  bridge. 
The  soldiers  at  the  camp  have  all  sorts  of  pets,  includ- 
ing monkeys,  which  they  pick  up  when  young,  and  tame. 
They  irrigate  a  considerable  garden  with  water  carried 
from  the  river  by  natives.  This  section  must  be  a 
terrific  place  when  the  weather  is  at  its  worst ;  it  is  at 
its  best  now,  and  we  stand  it  with  difficulty. 


WEDNESDAY,  APRIL  2. — We  said  good-by  to  Victoria 
Falls  this  afternoon  at  1 : 10,  and  left  by  train  for  the 
East  Coast.  Captain  Moseley  came  to  the  station 
to  see  us,  bringing  all  his  hunting-dogs  with  him.  To- 
morrow morning  at  3  o'clock  he  leaves  for  his  new  sta- 
tion in  the  interior,  traveling  in  a  wagon  drawn  by 
eight  yoke  of  oxen  and  driven  by  two  negroes.  One 
of  the  negroes  will  sit  up  all  night,  to  watch  the  graz- 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          347 

ing  cattle,  and  guard  the  camp,  and  every  afternoon 
he  will  sleep  hi  the  wagon.  Ox  teams  travel  very 
slowly,  and  the  captain  will  walk  most  of  the  way,  and 
hunt  as  he  goes  along.  A  negro  servant  accompanies 
him  as  cook,  and  will  remain  with  him  at  the  new  sta- 
tion. His  nearest  white  neighbors  will  be  sixty  miles 
away,  and  he  does  not  expect  to  receive  mail  more  than 
once  in  three  months.  .  .  .  The  train  is  .not 
crowded,  for  a  wonder,  and  we  were  given  a  double 
compartment  thrown  into  one.  Our  traveling  ac- 
quaintances, Mrs.  Meek  and  her  daughter  Bettie,  are 
still  with  us,  and  they  have  equally  good  accommo- 
dations. The  South-African  railway  men  take  good 
care  of  you  when  it  is  possible.  .  .  .  The  Bishop 
arrived  at  the  Falls  this  morning,  and  baptized  the 
photographer's  baby.  A  young  curate  came  with  him, 
and  sat  on  the  veranda  and  drank  five  highballs  in 
quick  succession.  But  the  incident,  like  women  smok- 
ing cigarettes  in  public,  attracted  no  comment  here. 
The  Bishop  is  a  genial  man,  and  was  soon  surrounded 
by  the  women.  The  women  dearly  love  an  ordinary 
preacher,  but  to  talk  to  a  Bishop  is  an  event  in  a 
church-worker's  life  she  never  forgets.  .  .  .  Dur- 
ing the  dry  season,  full-grown  cattle  may  be  bought  in 
parts  of  South  Africa  at  $10  a  head.  .  .  .  When  I 
went  into  the  hotel  dining-room  for  breakfast  this 
morning,  the  head  waiter  informed  me  hi  a  whisper 
that  a  few  fresh  eggs  had  just  been  received  from  the 
hotel  farm,  and  advised  me  to  order  soft-boiled  eggs. 
This  head  waiter  was  born  in  the  West  Indies,  and 
some  of  the  men  under  him  are  Hindus,  some  of  them 
negroes,  and  some  of  them  Portuguese.  .  .  .  This 


348  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

is  written  on  a  piece  of  railroad  track  seventy-four 
miles  long  without  a  single  cu  ve,  which  is  not  a  very 
big  story:  in  Argentine,  South  America,  there  is  a 
similar  piece  of  track  twice  as  long.  .  .  .  Possibly 
the  reader  imagines  that  'way  over  here  I  am  a  stranger 
in  a  strange  land.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  know  nearly 
every  passenger  on  this  train;  also,  the  conductor, 
and  the  waiters  in  the  dining-car.  I  came  up  with 
the  trainmen,  and  I  spent  four  days  with  the  passen- 
gers at  Victoria  Falls.  All  of  them  are  either  English 
or  Colonials ;  no  Americans  except  ourselves.  Awhile 
ago,  the  conductor  came  into  my  compartment  to  visit 
awhile.  He  is  an  Englishman,  but  astonished  me  by 
saying  that  he  likes  German  ships  better  than  English 
ships.  On  English  ships,  he  says,  visitors  are  looked  at 
with  suspicion,  whereas  visitors  are  always  welcome 
on  a  German  ship.  The  conductor  will  go  through 
with  us  to  Beira,  from  Bulawayo,  and  has  promised 
to  do  his  best  for  us  in  the  way  of  securing  accommo- 
dations on  the  train.  Englishmen  who  live  out  here 
soon  have  their  sharp  edges  worn  off,  and  become  more 
agreeable.  .  .  .  There  are  certain  American  things 
that  seem  to  be  universal.  Wherever  we  go,  we  see 
Eastman's  kodaks,  National  cash  registers,  Selig's 
moving  pictures,  Colgate's  perfumes  and  soap,  Cham- 
berlain's cough  syrup,  the  Ladies'  Home  Journal,  Rob- 
ert Chambers's  books,  and  Mr.  Rockefeller's  gasoline. 
.  .  .  It  costs  a  good  deal  of  money  to  have  washing 
done  over  here,  and  we  are  wondering  over  the  fact 
that  the  most  reasonable  laundry  bill  we  have  paid 
was  at  the  Victoria  Falls  Hotel,  where  we  expected 
nothing  but  highway  robbery.  When  we  registered 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.  349 

at  that  hotel,  the  manager  said  he  had  two  rooms  re- 
served for  us.  They  were  double  rooms,  excellently 
located.  Mrs.  Meek  and  her  daughter  slept  in  one 
room,  on  two  small  beds,  and  they  are  grumbling  be- 
cause they  were  charged  exactly  what  we  were  charged. 
It  is  so  unusual  for  me  to  get  the  best  of  it  that  I  am 
rather  enjoying  their  indignation.  ...  I  have 
often  heard  of  the  extreme  brightness  of  the  nights  in 
Africa.  I  cannot  see  that  they  are  any  brighter  than 
the  nights  at  home,  except  that  there  are  a  good  many 
more  prominent  stars.  In  the  north,  we  hear  a  great 
deal  of  the  Southern  Cross.  We  see  it  every  night, 
but  consider  it  insignificant.  We  are  on  the  opposite 
side  of  the  earth  from  Kansas,  and  the  constellations 
we  see  there  cannot  be  seen  here.  Pope,  the  English- 
man, in  describing  great  distance,  wrote :  "Far  as  the 
polar  walk  or  milky  way."  The  people  in  Africa  don't 
understand  the  sentence :  the  milky  way  cannot  be 
seen  here,  nor  is  our  big  dipper  visible.  .  .  .  Tonight 
at  ten  o'clock,  before  going  to  bed,  I  went  forward  into 
the  dining-car  to  get  a  drink  of  water,  and  found  the 
car  full  of  men  drinking;  a  custom  more  common  in 
this  country  than  at  home.  The  English  laugh  at  our 
American  habit  of  drinking  ice-water.  There  is  a  cer- 
tain Hot  Water  much  worse,  known  as  John  Barley- 
corn, and  Englishmen  drink  too  much  of  it.  ... 
Poor  Mrs.  Atterbury,  who  has  lived  in  South  Africa 
nineteen  years  without  a  sight  of  her  old  home  in  St. 
Joseph,  Missouri,  says  she  longs  to  go  home  in  order 
that  she  may  again  see  pretty  girls  and  babies.  Mrs. 
Meek,  our  traveling  acquaintance,  who  has  always  lived 
in  the  Transvaal,  admits  that  pretty  girls  and  babies 


350  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

are  scarce  here.  They  do  not  seem  to  thrive  in  this 
climate.  Another  peculiarity  is  that  nearly  all  the 
women  have  black  hair;  a  blonde  with  blue  eyes  is  a 
great  rarity  in  Africa.  When  a  woman's  hair  isn't 
black  in  Africa,  it  is  a  fiery  red.  .  .  .  The  country 
between  Victoria  Falls  and  Bulawayo  seems  to  be  bet- 
ter developed  than  the  country  between  Bulawayo  and* 
Mafeking.  This  afternoon,  eighty  or  a  hundred  miles 
from  the  falls,  we  stopped  at  quite  a  coal-mining  town, 
and  saw  great  rows  of  coke  ovens. 


THURSDAY,  APRIL  3. — In  order  to  reach  the  sea  at 
Beira,  we  were  compelled  to  travel  back  to  Bulawayo 
from  Victoria  Falls,  and  remain  there  from  7  :  30  A.  M. 
until  10 : 30  P.  M.  We  devoted  the  day  to  an  auto- 
mobile ride,  and  visited  the  Khami  ruins,  fifteen  miles 
from  the  town.  .  .  .  Many  centuries  ago,  Africa 
was  inhabited  by  a  race  far  superior  in  intelligence  to 
the  present  native  negroes.  These  people  left  the  coun- 
try hurriedly,  for  some  reason,  and  it  was  one  of  their 
deserted  towns  we  visited  today.  Some  learned  in- 
vestigators say  the  ruined  and  deserted  cities  were 
built  long  before  the  Christian  era,  probably  in  the 
tune  of  Solomon,  and  that  the  gold  with  which  Solo- 
mon's temple  was  adorned,  amounting  in  value  to  ten 
million  dollars,  was  mined  in  Africa.  There  seems  to  be 
no  doubt  that  the  gold  mines  in  Rhodesia  were  worked 
many  centuries  ago;  the  workers  in  the  mines  today 
find  unmistakable  evidence  of  previous  occupation. 
.  .  .  The  ruins  we  visited  are  scattered  over  a  good 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          351 

many  acres,  along  a  river  in  which  there  is  only  stag- 
nant water.  Some  of  the  more  extensive  buildings 
;  seem  to  have  been  used  for  defense.  These  are  of 
stone,  without  mortar,  and  hundreds  of  feet  of  the  walls 
are  in  as  good  condition  as  they  ever  were.  There 
are  great  cisterns  for  holding  water  and  grain,  and 
modern  builders  say  the  cement  was  probably  made 
*  *  on  the  ground,  by  a  process  of  which  they  have  no 
knowledge.  Some  of  the  cisterns,  if  cleaned  out,  would 
probably  hold  water  today.  Many  relics  have  been 
picked  up  about  the  place,  which  may  be  seen  in  a 
museum  at  Bulawayo,  and  these  indicate  that  the  in- 
habitants were  nearly  as  far  advanced  as  the  ancient 
Egyptians ;  they  were  able  to  smelt  metals,  and  they 
had  various  kinds  of  domestic  utensils,  pottery,  im- 
plements of  war,  etc.  The  people  of  Khami  knew 
something  of  dentistry,  of  medicine,  and  of  astronomy. 
Five  hundred  ruins  or  vestiges  of  former  buildings  are 
found  in  Rhodesia,  extending  over  an  area  800  by  700 
miles,  and  all  these  are  undoubtedly  much  older  than 
Columbus,  and  probably  older  than  Christ.  .  .  . 
Recently  ruins  have  been  found  in  Thibet  very  much 
older  than  the  rums  in  Egypt,  and,  as  investigations 
are  more  carefully  made,  the  fact  becomes  more  ap- 
parent that  no  one  has  yet  been  able  to  realize  how  old 
the  world  actually  is.  ...  In  going  to  the  Khami 
ruins,  we  passed  hundreds  of  negro  women  walking 
into  Bulawayo  and  carrying  vegetables,  chickens,  fire- 
wood, etc.  They  were  all  naked  above  the  waist,  and 
invariably  carried  their  loads  on  their  heads;  one 
woman  carried  a  watermelon  in  this  unusual  way. 
The  chickens  were  carried  in  rough  home-made  baskets. 


352  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

.  .  .  The  ruined  city  of  Khami  is  in  a  wild  and 
desolate  country.  On  the  way  there,  we  saw  only  one 
or  two  farm-houses  occupied  by  white  men,  and  not 
many  native  huts.  The  country  looked  dry  and  worth- 
less, and  the  roads  were  badly  washed  by  torrential 
rains.  The  ruins  are  located  in  hills,  and  the  day  was 
so  hot  that  we  did  not  climb  up  to  several  of  the  most 
extensive-looking  fortresses.  Nothing  is  positively 
known  about  Khami ;  who  the  people  were  who  built 
the  town,  when  it  was  built,  how  long  occupied,  or  when 
deserted,  is  pure  conjecture. 


FRIDAY,  APRIL  4. — We  should  have  left  Bulawayo 
last  night  at  10 :  30,  but  the  train  was  late,  and  we  did 
not  get  away  until  after  1  o'clock  this  morning.  By  the 
time  we  got  our  beds  made,  it  was  almost  time  to  get 
up  for  breakfast.  This  is  the  first  time  we  have  found 
a  train  more  than  a  few  minutes  late  in  either  Austra- 
lia, New  Zealand,  or  Africa.  ...  I  awoke  at  day- 
light in  the  prettiest  country  we  have  seen  in  Africa; 
a  country  as  handsome  as  the  prairies  of  Illinois  must 
have  been  a  hundred  years  ago.  Thousands  of  acres 
of  gently  rolling  prairie  land,  but  it  looks  better  than 
it  really  is.  In  1896  the  dreaded  rinderpest  killed  all 
the  cattle  and  game  in  this  section,  and  carts  stood  idle 
in  the  roads  because  there  were  no  oxen  to  move  them ; 
the  air  was  rendered  offensive  by  the  stench  from  dead 
animals.  Whether  you  try  to  raise  stock,  fruit  or  corn 
here,  you  have  pests  to  deal  with,  and  they  seem  to  be 
more  persistent  and  numerous  than  pests  are  else- 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          353 

where.  We  hear  of  great  drouths,  and  of  the  people 
paying  a  shilling  a  gallon  for  water.  Some  of  the 
towns  have  built  electric-light  plants,  but  often  there 
is  no  water  for  the  engines,  and  people  use  candles  for 
illuminating.  Enterprising  men  build  modern  hotels 
hi  the  towns,  but  frequently  there  is  no  water  for  the 
modern  baths,  and  the  guests  do  well  to  get  enough 
water  to  drink.  .  .  .  Another  pest  here  is  white 
ants.  They  kill  forest  trees,  and  undermine  the  founda- 
tions of  houses ;  they  devour  furniture  and  clothing — 
yet  the  country  is  so  fair  that  it  seems  a  pity  to  turn 
it  over  to  desolation.  On  the  line  between  Bulawayo 
and  Salisbury  there  are  a  good  many  towns,  including 
one  built  around  the  best  gold  mine  hi  Rhodesia.  And 
how  the  people  turned  out  to  see  the  tram  come  in! 
At  one  place  we  estimated  that  there  must  have  been 
five  hundred  around  the  station.  Trains  travel  over 
the  line  only  two  or  three  tunes  a  week,  and  people 
seem  to  come  from  great  distances  hi  the  country  to 
see  the  trams  go  by.  But  between  the  stations  there 
were  millions  of  acres  of  land  as  wild  as  it  was  in  the 
days  of  Adam.  .  .  .  Early  in  the  morning  our 
English  passengers  walked  about  hi  pajamas  when  we 
stopped  at  stations;  Englishmen  love  that  sort  of 
thing.  At  Victoria  Falls  they  visited  the  Rain  Forest 
hi  pajamas,  and  in  Johannesburg  I  was  told  that  on 
Sundays  and  holidays,  pajamas  are  worn  around  houses 
and  yards  until  lunch-time.  Englishmen  show  their 
pajamas  so  much  that  I  cordially  hate  that  particular 
form  of  night-dress ;  Englishmen  have  the  same  pas- 
sion for  running  around  in  pajamas  that  American 
boys  have  for  running  around  hi  baseball  suits.  .  .  . 


354  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

In  spite  of  occasional  calamities  such  as  115  in  the  shade, 
and  drinking-water  selling  at  a  shilling  a  gallon,  Rho- 
desia is  progressive,  and  encourages  every  enterprise. 
I  have  been  frequently  told  here  that  the  United  States 
agricultural  bulletins  are  the  best  in  the  world,  and  that 
they  are  read  with  interest  hi  Rhodesia.  Another 
statement  you  hear  frequently  in  Africa :  "They  have 
adopted  the  American  method;"  but  the  trouble  is, 
they  haven't  the  American  means  to  work  with.  .  .  . 
A  London  man  told  me  today  that  he  buys  Harper's 
Magazine  regularly  for  two  cents,  although  Americans 
are  asked  thirty-five  cents  for  it.  A  good  many  of  the 
American  magazines  sell  their  surplus  copies  in  Lon- 
don at  ridiculously  low  prices.  .  .  .  The  negroes 
hi  the  most  civilized  portions  of  Africa  practice  witch- 
craft, and  the  authorities  are  compelled  to  closely 
watch  the  native  doctors  and  priests,  to  prevent  out- 
rages and  murders.  .  .  .  We  arrived  in  Salisbury 
at  5  :  30  in  the  evening,  and  remained  there  four  hours ; 
railroad  trains  make  long  stops  at  stations  here  without 
any  apparent  reason,  unless  it  is  that  the  engineer, 
station-master  and  guard  cannot  agree  on  starting. 
The  first  preliminary  for  starting  a  train  in  Africa  is 
for  the  station-master  to  ring  a  hand-bell.  Next  the 
guard  blows  a  tin  whistle,  to  indicate  that  he  is  ready, 
and  the  engineer  then  blows  a  blast  on  the  steam  whistle. 
I  have  heard  these  preliminaries  gone  through  with  a 
dozen  times  before  the  train  finally  started ;  when  the 
station-master  is  ready,  the  engineer  isn't,  and  when 
both  these  officials  are  ready  to  start,  the  guard  isn't. 
When  the  guard  is  ready,  the  engineer  and  station- 
master  seem  to  conclude  to  let  him  wait  awhile.  And 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          355 

so,  after  a  time,  they  begin  all  over  again,  and,  in  the 
course  of  fifteen  minutes,  finally  get  away.  .  .  . 
There  is  an  English  woman  on  the  train  who  is  leaving 
Africa  because  of  bad  health.  Her  husband  is  also 
an  invalid,  as  a  result  of  the  fever;  in  addition,  he 
lost  everything  he  brought  to  the  country.  This 
woman  says  there  is  a  plague  for  everything  in  Africa. 
We  walked  about  Salisbury  with  her,  while  waiting 
for  the  train  to  depart  at  9 :  30  p.  M.,  and  the  town 
seemed  as  disconsolate  as  our  traveling  acquaintance. 
.  .  .  I  ate  dinner  in  Salisbury  at  a  little  restaurant, 
and  shall  always  remember  the  place,  because  of  two 
very  pretty  girl  waiters,  and  because  of  the  large  num- 
ber of  young  men  who  came  in  to  flirt  with  them. 


SATURDAY,  APRIL  5. — Soon  after  breakfast  this  morn- 
ing, we  passed  out  of  Rhodesia  into  Portuguese  East 
Africa,  at  a  little  town  the  name  of  which  I  have  for- 
gotten. A  Portuguese  customs  officer  came  on  board, 
but  did  not  bother  us,  beyond  asking  if  we  had  either 
pistols  or  guns  in  our  luggage.  Being  assured  that  we 
had  not,  he  bowed  very  politely,  and  departed.  The 
governor  of  Portuguese  East  Africa  joined  us  at  this 
station,  traveling  in  a  private  car  with  his  wife  and  a 
party  of  friends.  A  number  of  ladies  and  gentlemen 
had  gathered  to  say  good-by  to  the  governor  and  his 
lady,  and  I  shall  never  forget  the  politeness  of  these 
people.  Our  compartment  was  within  a  few  feet  of  the 
observation  end  of  the  private  car,  but  the  Portuguese 
never  saw  us,  while  other  people  on  the  train  stared 


356  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

at  us  as  though  we  were  very  odd  specimens  of  human- 
ity. .  .  .  Soon  after  passing  into  Portuguese  terri- 
tory, the  railroad  ran  through  mountains,  and  the  ride 
was  interesting  all  the  way  to  Beira,  which  town  we 
reached  at  9 : 30  P.  M.  This  section  is  tropical,  and 
bananas  and  cocoanuts  grow  in  profusion.  Near  one 
town  we  saw  hundreds  of  acres  of  growing  corn ;  and 
it  was  much  better  corn  than  we  had  been  seeing  in 
Rhodesia  and  other  parts  of  South  Africa.  It  wasn't 
such  corn  as  we  grow,  but  it  was  probably  half  as  good 
as  an  ordinary  crop  in  eastern  Kansas.  I  estimated  one 
field  I  saw  at  four  or  five  hundred  acres;  there  were 
several  others  of  fifty  to  a  hundred  acres.  But  the 
fields  were  widely  separated.  In  eastern  Kansas  every 
foot  of  the  land  is  devoted  to  crops,  or  pasture,  or 
orchard,  but  here  the  occasional  fields  of  corn  were 
separated  by  miles  of  wild  land.  There  is  more  rain 
in  this  section  than  in  the  vicinity  of  Bulawayo  or 
Victoria  Falls,  and  the  stations  on  the  railway  more 
numerous.  ...  As  evening  approached,  we  no- 
ticed that  in  the  native  villages,  pots  were  boiling  at 
open  fires  in  front  of  the  huts.  Cook-stoves  are  un- 
known among  the  natives,  and  they  have  very  little 
to  eat  except  corn-meal  mush.  They  make'  an  intoxi- 
cating liquor  out  of  corn-meal,  and  their  holidays  are 
largely  devoted  to  revelry.  The  natives  nearly  all  have 
cows,  and  drink  a  good  deal  of  milk,  first  letting  it  sour, 
and  become  what  we  call  clabber.  Some  of  the  great- 
est scientists  claim  that  the  free  use  of  clabber-milk 
will  preserve  life  well  beyond  a  hundred  years.  The 
primitive  races  which  live  longest  are  liberal  users  of 
sour  milk,  which  is  claimed  to  destroy  an  intestinal 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          357 

bacteria  very  fatal  to  human  life.  .  .  .  The  line 
of  railroad  to  the  sea  at  Beira  was  built  to  get  cattle  to 
market  from  the  fly  district,  Natal  and  the  Cape  hav- 
ing quarantined  against  cattle  in  Rhodesia  and  other 
districts  subject  to  disease.  The  line  from  Bulawayo 
is  seven  hundred  miles  long,  and  operated  through 
Portuguese  territory  by  special  concession.  It  passes 
through  as  interesting  a  country  as  we  have  seen  in 
Africa.  ...  At  seven  o'clock  in  the  evening  we 
passed  into  a  swampy  country,  and  mosquitoes  became 
a  pest.  These  were  the  dangerous  mosquitoes,  and 
we  fought  them  viciously.  And  all  day  the  weather 
had  been  oppressively  hot.  .  .  .  At  9 :  30  p.  M.  we 
reached  Beira,  and  had  to  pass  our  baggage  through 
the  custom-house.  This  ceremony  concluded,  we  went 
to  the  Savoy  Hotel  in  what  they  call  a  "trolley"  here. 
A  narrow-gauge  street  railway  has  been  laid  all  over 
Beira,  but  cars  are  not  operated  either  by  electric  or 
horse  power.  Every  citizen  owns  his  own  car,  a  small, 
light  affair  pushed  by  negro  men.  On  the  principal 
streets  there  are  three  tracks,  and  there  is  a  system  by 
which  traffic  is  regulated.  When  we  went  up-town  in 
a  passenger  trolley,  the  hotel  porter  came  along  behind, 
with  our  baggage  on  a  freight  trolley.  Freight  of  ev- 
ery kind  is  carried  to  every  part  of  Beira  by  these 
street-railway  lines,  and  there  are  little  steam  locomo- 
tives which  handle  heavy  freight  at  night.  Beira  is  a 
Portuguese  town,  and  passing  through  it  at  night  on 
a  trolley  pushed  by  two  negro  men,  was  an  unusual 
experience.  When  we  reached  the  postoffice,  the  mail 
trolleys  were  unloading,  and  we  were  compelled  to 
wait  several  minutes.  .  .  .  Reaching  the  Savoy 


358  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

Hotel,  which  is  modern  and  comfortable,  we  went  out 
on  the  veranda  in  front  of  our  rooms,  and  saw  the 
German  ship  "Burgermeister,"  brilliantly  lighted  up, 
lying  in  the  harbor.  We  shall  go  on  board  tomorrow, 
and  remain  twenty-four  days,  until  we  reach  Naples, 
in  Italy. 


SUNDAY,  APRIL  6. — This  morning  we  took  a  ride 
around  Beira  on  a  trolley  pushed  by  a  negro  man.  The 
site  of  Beira  is  a  sandbar  reclaimed  from  the  sea,  and 
there  is  not  a  horse  in  the  town ;  indeed,  there  is  not 
a  horse  within  a  hundred  and  fifty  miles  of  Beira, 
owing  to  the  horse  disease.  There  are  no  mule  or  ox- 
drawn  vehicles,  and  no  automobiles,  owing  to  the 
streets  of  sand,  so  the  queer  street  railway  supplies  all 
transportation.  There  are  cement  sidewalks,  but  in 
the  middle  of  the  street  the  sand  is  ankle-deep.  .  .  . 
The  town  looks  like  Manila,  in  a  way,  except  that  it  is 
not  so  large.  Banana  and  cocoanut  trees  grow  every- 
where in  dooryards,  as  do  the  bright  red  flowers  com- 
mon in  the  tropics.  Every  house  is  raised  six  or  seven 
feet  above  the  ground,  for  additional  coolness,  and  un- 
der many  houses  we  saw  natives  cooking  meals  at  open 
fires.  In  front  of  nearly  every  house  was  a  private 
trolley;  we  saw  hundreds  of  them  during  the  ride. 
They  were  usually  for  two  passengers,  and  covered,  for 
the  sun  is  always  very  hot  here.  I  should  say  the  av- 
erage private  trolley  costs  fifteen  or  twenty  dollars, 
and  has  four  light  iron  wheels.  One  man  may  easily 
lift  a  trolley  off  the  track,  which  is  the  manner  of  dis- 
posing of  them  when  not  in  use.  As  the  town  grows, 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          359 

the  street-railway  tracks  are  extended,  and  many  house- 
owners  build  private  lines  to  their  premises.  It  is  the 
most  curious  thing  I  have  seen  on  the  trip ;  I  had  never 
before  seen  street  railways  of  this  kind,  or  heard  of 
them.  There  is  a  bathing-beach  here,  and  it  can  be 
reached  only  by  these  peculiar  hand-pushed  cars.  The 
street  railway  lines  extend  not  only  to  every  residence 
section,  but  to  every  business  section,  and  to  the  rail- 
road yards  as  well  as  to  the  ship  docks.  The  lines  were 
built  by  the  city,  and  were  not  very  expensive,  as  the 
rails  are  light.  The  up-keep  is  provided  for  by  an  an- 
nual tax  paid  by  every  trolley-owner  for  the  privilege 
of  using  the  tracks.  Many  business  men  have  several 
trolleys ;  one  or  more  for  their  own  use,  one  or  more 
for  the  use  of  their  families,  and  one  or  more  for  freight 
purposes.  Although  the  streets  of  Beira  are  composed 
entirely  of  sand,  the  sand  is  heavy,  and  does  not  blow 
about  as  dust.  The  weather  last  night  was  cool,  but 
the  days  are  very  hot.  .  .  .  The  Savoy  Hotel  at 
Beira  overlooks  the  sea,  and  its  grounds  would  be 
flooded  at  high  tide  but  for  the  protection  afforded  by 
a  sea-wall.  One  might  sit  on  the  back  porches  of  the 
hotel,  and  fish  in  the  sea.  The  waiters  are  native  boys 
wearing  white  coats,  and  dresses  such  as  women  wear. 
A  black  man  wearing  a  coat  and  dress  is  a  queer  sight, 
and  I  know  of  nothing  in  towns  more  unusual  than 
Beira.  It  is  thoroughly  Portuguese,  and  everything  is 
quaint  and  picturesque.  Beira  has  a  very  bad  reputa- 
tion ;  you  hear  up  the  line  that  everything  that  is  dis- 
agreeable will  happen  to  you  there,  but  we  rather  liked 
the  place.  The  hotel  was  good,  and  the  people  polite ; 
we  encountered  nothing  disagreeable  at  Beira  except 


360  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

tremendously  hot  weather.  .  .  .  We  went  aboard 
the  "Burgermeister"  at  2  p.  M.,  and  sailed  two  hours 
later.  A  Cape  Town  theatrical  man  named  Sam 
Marks,  had  a  letter  of  introduction  to  us  from  travel- 
ing acquaintances,  and  secured  us  seats  at  table  with 
his  wife  and  three  other  English-speaking  people.  So 
everything  was  very  pleasant  until  Adelaide  went  down 
to  her  room  to  dress  for  dinner.  She  found  that  she 
had  been  assigned  to  a  cabin  with  a  Portuguese  woman 
and  a  little  baby.  The  woman  cannot  speak  English, 
and  has  a  Kaffir  man  nurse  for  the  baby.  The  Kaffir 
man  is  in  the  woman's  room  most  of  the  time  looking 
after  the  baby,  and  was  there  when  Adelaide  went  down 
to  dress.  The  chief  steward,  when  the  matter  was 
called  to  his  attention,  was  sorry,  but  proposed  no 
other  remedy  than  to  keep  the  negro  boy  out.  We 
then  took  the  matter  up  with  the  captain,  who  speaks 
very  good  English,  and  he  arranged  it  by  giving  Ade- 
laide a  room  to  herself.  .  .  .  No  religious  services 
were  held  on  board  in  honor  of  the  day,  but  a  dance 
was  held  on  deck,  in  the  evening.  The  ship  band  plays 
a  concert  every  morning  at  10 :  30,  and  every  even- 
ing at  9  the  orchestra  plays.  .  .  .  When  we  left 
Beira,  the  sea  was  as  smooth  as  a  mill-pond.  At  10 
p.  M.  a  wireless  telegram  announced  that  a  bad  storm 
was  raging  there.  For  several  days  we  have  had  in- 
tensely hot  weather,  but  at  sea  we  found  a  delightfully 
cool  breeze,  and  Captain  Ulrich  says  that  at  this  season 
we  should  have  smooth  seas  and  agreeable  weather  all 
the  way  to  Naples.  .  .  .  The  passengers  are  mainly 
Germans,  as  this  is  a  German  ship.  There  are  a  few 
English,  a  few  Colonials,  and  a  few  Portuguese,  but 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          361 

we  are  the  only  Americans.  In  the  steerage  there  is  a 
great  mingling  of  races,  including  Hindus,  negroes  and 
Arabs.  These  people  bring  their  own  bedding,  and  do 
their  own  cooking.  As  soon  as  the  freight  was  stored 
away,  and  the  forward  hatchway  covered,  the  steerage 
passengers  settled  down  for  the  night,  and  produced 
their  bedding  and  cooking  utensils.  Some  of  them  eat 
rice,  and  some  of  them  eat  corn-meal  mush,  but  all  of 
them  eat  with  their  fingers.  Somewhere  a  fire  is  pro- 
vided where  they  may  cook  their  food,  and  plenty  of 
water  may  be  had  at  a  convenient  faucet.  The  firemen 
are  Arabs,  and  they  mingle  with  the  steerage  passen- 
gers. I  had  always  imagined  that  an  Arab  was  fond 
of  ease,  and  lazy,  but  Captain  Ulrich  says  they  are  the 
most  reliable  firemen  to  be  had,  and  the  most  efficient. 


MONDAY,  APRIL  7. — We  have  spent  a  good  part  of 
this  day  lying  off  Chindi,  a  decaying  town  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Zambesi  river.  We  arrived  at  9  A.  M.,  and  an- 
chored in  the  open  sea,  where  we  rolled  and  pitched 
gently  until  4 :  30  P.  M.  It  seems  the  "  Burgermeister" 
is  ahead  of  time,  and  the  tender  did  not  come  off  until 
2 : 30  P.  M.  It  brought  two  hundred  negro  boys,  six- 
teen to  eighteen  years  old,  and  entirely  naked  except 
that  each  one  wore  a  cloth  about  the  loins.  These  boys 
had  been  sent  to  work  on  sugar  plantations  by  labor 
agents,  who  received  a  pound  each  for  finding  them. 
But  the  boys  soon  contracted  dysentery,  and  are  being 
sent  home.  When  the  tender  came  alongside,  many 
of  the  boys  were  seasick,  and  some  of  them  crying. 


362 


They  were  transferred  from  the  tender  to  the  ship  in  a 
huge  basket,  ten  or  twelve  at  a  time.  Many  of  the 
boys  had  sore  feet,  having  walked  to  Chindi  from  the 
plantations  where  they  were  employed.  All  of  them 
were  thin  in  flesh,  and  nine  out  of  ten  had  no  baggage ; 
nothing  to  eat  out  of,  and  nothing  to  sleep  on:  no 
possession  whatever  except  a  loin-cloth,  and  some  of 
these  were  made  of  grass,  or  of  old  matting.  The 
slaves  of  olden  days  could  not  have  presented  a  much 
worse  spectacle.  These  boys  worked  on  the  sugar 
plantations  at  $1.75  per  month.  Counting  interest  on 
money  invested,  and  taking  into  consideration  the  fact 
that  old  slaves  must  be  cared  for,  that  is  cheaper  than 
owning  slaves.  .  .  .  Ten  white  passengers  also 
came  out  on  the  tender,  and  of  course  these  were 
brought  on  board  before  the  negroes.  The  passenger 
basket  is  a  huge  wicker  affair  in  which  six  to  ten  per- 
sons are  locked.  Then  it  is  hoisted,  by  means  of  a 
donkey  engine,  from  the  tender  to  the  deck  of  the  ship, 
or  vice  versa.  Sometimes,  when  passengers  are  dis- 
embarking, and  the  basket  is  being  lowered  to  the  deck 
of  the  tender,  the  waves  send  the  tender  upward 
quickly,  and  the  passengers  get  a  bad  jolt.  In  the  open 
sea,  the  small  tenders  roll  and  knock  about  so  much 
that  this  method  of  handling  passengers  is  necessary. 
Several  children  were  brought  on  board,  and  in  every 
case  they  screamed  with  fright.  But  if  the  tackle 
holds,  the  method  is  safe  enough.  .  .  .  The  "Bur- 
germeister"  is  the  best  ship  we  have  been  on  since 
leaving  home.  The  food  is  abundant,  and  well  cooked, 
and  the  service  excellent  in  all  respects.  Captain  Ul- 
rich  is  the  youngest  captain  I  have  ever  seen  on  a 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          363 

steamship;  he  is  not  more  than  forty  years  old,  and 
probably  under  that  age.  He  is  a  famous  man  on  the 
line  because  of  the  dignified  interest  he  takes  in  pas- 
sengers. He  told  me  last  night  that  during  the  present 
trip  he  hadn't  had  an  hour  of  bad  weather;  and  he 
left  Hamburg  February  25,  and  came  through  the 
dreaded  Bay  of  Biscay  and  the  stormy  English  channel. 
.  .  .  Chindi  is  the  port  of  entry  for  Nyasaland  and 
Northern  Rhodesia,  and  the  Zambesi  river  enters  the 
ocean  there.  Small  boats  ply  on  the  river,  and  there 
are  sugar  plantations  in  the  interior.  It  is  generally 
believed  that  Chindi  will  be  greatly  harmed  by  a  new 
railroad  to  be  built  from  Beira.  .  .  .  Nyasaland 
is  one  of  the  modern  achievements  hi  colonization. 
Although  in  the  heart  of  the  Dark  Continent,  and  given 
over  only  a  few  years  ago  to  the  most  appalling  bar- 
barism, it  now  has  a  railway  service,  settlements  lit  by 
electricity,  vast  tracts  of  land  under  scientific  cultiva- 
tion, an  improved  wagon-road  100  miles  long,  a  stable 
government,  and  cheap  land,  on  which  may  be  grown 
corn,  cotton,  and  tobacco.  I  hear  even  at  this  distance 
of  one  planter  who  made  $10,000  in  one  year  from  to- 
bacco. ...  In  order  to  reach  Nyasaland  at  pres- 
ent, travelers  leave  ships  five  miles  off  Chindi,  being 
transferred  to  tenders  in  baskets.  At  Chindi  they  take 
small  boats  for  Port  Herald,  two  hundred  miles  up 
the  Zambesi  river.  The  negro  engineers  on  these 
steamboats  get  $3.75  a  month.  The  captain  of  the 
boat  is  a  white  man,  and  an  engineer,  but  natives  have 
learned  his  trade,  and  now  do  all  the  work  in  the  en- 
gine-room. This  is  true  all  over  Africa:  the  white 
men  show  the  negroes,  and  the  negroes  pick  up  all  the 


364  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

trades.  At  Port  Herald  begins  a  railroad  one  hundred 
and  thirteen  miles  long,  with  very  stiff  grades,  running 
into  the  interior.  There  are  only  four  white  men  em- 
ployed on  the  line:  the  general  manager,  the  traffic 
superintendent,  the  chief  accountant,  and  the  locomo- 
tive foreman.  All  the  telegraphers  are  negroes,  and 
do  their  work  well  for  $2.50  a  month.  In  order  to  be- 
come telegraphers,  it  was  necessary  for  them  to  learn 
to  read  and  write  English.  The  head  boy  in  the  gen- 
eral offices  of  the  railway,  a  very  capable  clerk,  gets 
$3.75  a  month.  The  locomotive  engineers  are  Hindus, 
and  receive  $30  a  month ;  but  the  firemen  are  all  ne- 
groes, and  receive  but  $3.75  a  month.  All  the  firemen 
are  capable  of  running  engines,  and  do  run  them  at 
times.  It  is  only  a  question  of  a  few  years  until  ne- 
groes succeed  the  high-priced  Hindus  as  locomotive  en- 
gineers. The  section  reached  by  the  railroad  is  devoted 
largely  to  tobacco  and  cotton.  One  planter  has  five 
hundred  acres  in  tobacco,  and  employs  eight  hundred 
natives ;  it  is  estimated  there  that  tobacco  requires  a 
man  and  a  half  to  every  acre.  These  natives  receive 
$1.25  a  month  and  board,  but  their  board  costs  only 
two  cents  a  day ;  they  eat  only  corn-meal,  which  costs 
a  dollar  a  hundred  pounds  as  a  rule.  That  amounts  to 
less  than  $2  a  month  for  a  good  workman.  A  tobacco 
planter  in  Nyasaland  is  satisfied  if  he  gets  five  hundred 
pounds  of  cured  tobacco  per  acre,  one-third  of  the  yield 
in  the  United  States,  and  he  sells  it  on  an  average  for 
seven  or  eight  cents  a  pound.  You  would  think  his 
freight  bill  would  eat  up  his  profits,  but  he  pays  only 
half  a  cent  a  pound  for  transporting  his  crop  to  London. 
The  rate  is  purposely  made  very  low,  to  encourage  to- 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          365 

bacco-growing.  It  is  not  equally  low  on  second-class 
merchandise  in  other  parts  of  Africa;  that  rate  from 
Capetown  to  Bulawayo,  a  merchant  told  me,  is  four 
cents  a  pound.  .  .  .  Food  is  very  cheap  in  the  in- 
terior of  Africa.  In  Nyasaland,  a  half-dozen  chickens 
may  be  bought  for  twenty-four  cents.  A  young  man 
on  board  is  an  employee  of  the  Eastern  Telegraph  Co., 
and  is  being  transferred  to  Zanzibar.  He  says  he  has 
chicken  so  frequently  that  he  despises  it ;  his  associates 
lately  joined  him  in  a  protest  to  the  company  against 
chicken.  The  chickens  here  are  small  and  tough  :  ev- 
ery native  raises  chickens,  which  are  compelled  to  pick 
up  a  living :  they  are  not  fed.  The  natives  do  not  eat 
them,  but  carry  them  great  distances  to  market.  .  .  . 
The  whisky  used  by  the  natives  is  made  of  corn,  by 
a  very  simple  process.  They  crush  the  grains  of  corn, 
pour  water  over  the  mass,  and  allow  it  to  ferment. 
Then  they  add  water,  and  put  it  away  in  earthen  jars 
until  needed.  .  .  .  One  of  the  most  interesting 
men  on  board  is  an  official  of  the  British  company 
which  built  the  railroad  from  Port  Herald,  two  hun- 
dred miles  up  the  Zambesi  river  from  Chindi,  into 
Nyasaland.  He  is  going  to  England  for  his  vacation ; 
the  ships  are  all  crowded  now,  as  this  is  the  favorite 
season  for  the  exiles  to  go  home.  He  says  the  English 
cotton  and  tobacco  planters  in  Nyasaland  are  not  very 
prosperous ;  they  make  a  living,  but  not  much  more. 
They  are  pioneers,  and  pioneers  rarely  make  a  great 
deal  of  money.  This  man  is  named  Metcalf,  and  had 
an  attack  of  the  African  fever  today.  He  dosed  him- 
self with  quinine,  and,  going  to  bed,  covered  himself 
with  blankets.  There  he  perspired  and  suffered  until 


366  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

the  attack  wore  off.  Many  of  the  passengers  of  the 
"Burgermeister"  are  invalids  going  home  to  recuperate 
after  an  experience  with  the  climate  of  Africa. 


TUESDAY,  APRIL  8. — It  is  fortunate  I  am  not  sea- 
sick, and  laid  up,  for  my  cabin  window  looks  out  on 
the  deck  where  the  steerage  passengers  are.  Early 
this  morning  I  heard  a  babel  of  voices,  and  supposed 
all  the  negro  boys  were  on  deck,  and  talking  at  the 
same  time.  Looking  out  of  my  window,  I  discovered 
that  fifteen  or  twenty  Hindus  were  doing  all  the  talk- 
ing, while  the  two  hundred  negro  boys  were  sitting 
around  in  perfect  silence.  The  steerage  passengers  can 
look  into  my  room,  if  so  disposed,  and  often  do.  Be- 
fore I  finished  dressing,  the  two  hundred  negro  boys 
were  fed.  Each  was  given  three  ship  biscuits,  and 
weak  tea  was  provided  for  those  who  could  get  to  it! 
When  the  boys  gathered  around  the  teakettle,  they  re- 
minded me  of  pigs  around  a  swill-trough.  The  stronger 
boys  drank  the  tea  from  cups  made  out  of  the  hollow 
of  their  hands,  and  the  weaker  ones,  or  runts,  got  none. 
Several  of  the  boys  were  living  skeletons,  and  had  evi- 
dently been  very  ill.  I  threw  an  apple  to  one  of  the 
runts,  but  he  had  never  seen  that  kind  of  fruit  before, 
and  I  was  compelled  to  inform  him  by  means  of  signs 
that  it  was  good  to  eat.  .  .  .  Six  of  the  boys  sat 
together,  and  divided  everything  given  them.  I  was 
told  that  they  were  brothers,  although  there  wasn't  a 
year's  difference  in  their  ages.  Their  father  probably 
has  a  dozen  wives,  as  polygamy  is  practiced  by  nearly 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          367 

all  the  natives.  .  .  .  While  the  negro  boys  were 
scrambling  for  the  scant  food  provided  by  the  steam- 
ship company,  the  other  deck  passengers  were  eating 
breakfasts  of  their  own  providing.  In  one  place,  six 
Hindu  men  were  eating,  seated  in  a  circle ;  they  seemed 
to  be  traveling  together.  In  every  party  of  Hindus, 
one  of  the  number  seems  to  be  a  half-servant,  and  he 
waits  on  the  others.  Several  of  the  negro  passengers 
are  dressed  like  the  Hindus,  and  do  not  seem  to  know 
any  other  language  than  Hindu.  Other  parties  of 
diners  on  the  deck  were  Arabs,  and  all  ate  with  their 
fingers.  Yesterday,  as  soon  as  the  ship  anchored  off 
Chindi,  the  Hindus  began  fishing,  the  pastime  of  lazy 
people  everywhere.  All  of  them  had  hooks  and  lines 
hi  their  baggage,  and  the  cook  provided  them  with 
fresh  meat  for  bait.  A  dozen  or  more  fish  were  caught, 
of  a  variety  resembling  our  catfish.  One  Hindu  fam- 
ily caught  three  fish,  which  were  "cleaned"  for  dinner 
in  the  dirtiest  manner  imaginable.  I  saw  the  Hindu 
mother  finally  prepare  the  fish  for  the  fire,  and  this  was 
the  way  she  did  it :  Each  piece  of  fish  was  dusted  with 
curry  powder  before  going  in  the  pot,  as  we  dust  fish 
in  cracker-meal  for  frying.  Then  she  put  in  a  few 
pieces  of  potato  and  onion,  and  a  crushed  mass  of  some 
sort  of  vegetable.  The  woman's  hands  being  covered 
with  curry  and  the  crushed  vegetable  referred  to  above, 
she  washed  them  in  water,  and  poured  the  water  into 
the  pot  with  the  fish.  Then  the  half-servant  took  the 
pot  away,  and  evidently  placed  it  on  the  stove  of  the 
crew  cook.  In  an  hour  he  brought  it  back,  and  the 
mess  was  allowed  to  cool,  after  which  the  six  members 
of  the  family  gathered  around,  and  ate  with  their  fin- 


368  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

gers.  The  mother  made  a  drink  in  the  following  manner : 
A  little  condensed  milk  was  poured  into  a  dirty  wash- 
basin nearly  full  of  water.  Sugar  was  added,  and  this 
beverage  was  passed  about,  and  drank  with  a  relish. 
One  member  of  the  family  was  a  girl  of  fourteen,  rather 
pretty,  but  dirty  beyond  description.  A  boy  of  eleven 
was  also  very  good-looking.  The  mother,  after  dinner, 
lit  a  cigarette,  and  handed  it  occasionally  to  her  hus- 
band, who  took  a  few  puffs,  and  handed  it  back  to  his 
wife.  .  .  .  Speaking  of  smoking  cigarettes,  last 
evening  Adelaide  and  I  sat  with  a  party  on  deck  to 
drink  coffee  after  dinner.  There  were  five  ladies  in 
the  party,  and  Adelaide  was  the  only  one  who  did  not 
smoke  a  cigarette  with  the  coffee.  .  .  .  The  poorer 
class  of  Hindus  seem  to  be  the  laziest  class  of  people  in 
the  world;  the  poverty  of  the  people  of  India  is  due 
more  to  shiftlessness  than  to  British  oppression.  .  .  . 
The  weather  has  been  superb  all  day,  and  land  in  sight 
nearly  all  the  time. 


WEDNESDAY,  APRIL  9. — Shortly  after  breakfast  this 
morning,  we  went  ashore  at  the  old  Portuguese  town 
of  Mozambique,  and  wandered  about  until  the  big 
ship  whistle  warned  us,  at  1  P.  M.,  to  go  on  board. 
When  we  went  down  the  ship's  side  to  enter  the  small 
boats  which  carry  passengers  ashore  at  a  shilling  each, 
we  were  mobbed  by  the  Arab  boatmen,  who  were  quar- 
reling over  our  patronage.  They  fought  viciously,  and 
many  of  them  fell  into  the  sea,  but  we  had  had  no  ex- 
citement for  several  days,  and  rather  liked  the  commo- 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          369 

tion.  There  were  certainly  two  boatmen  for  every 
passenger,  and  the  noise  they  made  was  tremendous. 
.  .  .  Mozambique  is  Moorish  in  design,  and  I 
greatly  enjoyed  my  visit  there.  The  streets  are  narrow 
and  crooked,  and  the  houses  hundreds  of  years  old ;  in 
some  of  them  may  still  be  seen  the  windows  of  mica  with 
which  they  were  originally  fitted.  Everywhere  are  the 
most  delightful  little  parks,  and  wherever  you  go  in 
the  town  you  cannot  see  your  way  out,  as  the  streets 
are  crooked,  and  you  see  only  queer  old  houses  with 
thick  walls  of  stucco.  In  most  towns  the  streets  are 
straight ;  there  are  long  rows  of  houses  on  either  side, 
and  the  streets  end  in  a  distant  view  of  the  country. 
But  Mozambique  apparently  tries  to  hide  the  fact  that 
it  is  a  small  town,  so  no  street  runs  straight  for  more 
than  a  block  or  two,  when  it  turns ;  thus  you  are  con- 
stantly in  a  maze  of  houses.  The  streets  are  not  more 
than  thirty  feet  wide,  and  as  all  doors  are  open,  owing 
to  the  intense  heat,  the  visitor  gains  an  intimate  idea 
of  the  habits  of  the  people.  The  Portuguese  are  re- 
lated to  the  Spanish,  so  their  houses  have  interior 
courts,  and  these  are  provided  with  gardens  or  foun- 
tains, when  water  can  be  had.  I  have  never  seen  any- 
thing more  quaint  than  the  shops  of  Mozambique ;  it 
is  a  small,  dull  town,  and  its  people  are  therefore  po- 
lite. Seven  out  of  ten  of  the  inhabitants  are  negroes, 
but  the  negroes  live  in  a  location  to  themselves,  and 
their  houses  are  almost  as  unusual  as  the  houses  in  the 
white  town,  for  they  differ  from  all  the  other  negro 
huts  I  have  seen  in  Africa.  .  .  .  Mozambique  has 
an  old  fort,  and  the  stones  with  which  it  is  built  were 
brought  from  Portugal  in  the  rude  ships  of  three  or 


370  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

four  hundred  years  ago.  Its  cannon  are  falling  to 
pieces  from  rust,  and  I  doubt  if  there  is  a  big  gun  in 
the  place  that  could  be  fired ;  but  a  Portuguese  garri- 
son is  maintained  there,  and  we  were  compelled  to  give 
up  our  cameras  before  going  in — the  soldiers  feared  we 
might  take  pictures  of  the  fortification  and  sell  them 
to  their  enemies.  Portugal  is  the  weakest  of  all  na- 
tions, and  has  always  been  kicked  about.  It  is  un- 
progressive  and  poor,  and  people  out  here  have  very 
little  more  respect  for  the  Portuguese  than  they  have 
for  the  Kaffirs.  Brazil  once  belonged  to  the  Portu- 
guese, and  it  became  such  a  prosperous  country  that 
the  court  left  Lisbon  and  located  in  Rio  de  Janeiro; 
the  colony  became  greater  than  the  mother  country. 
But  the  inevitable  revolution  soon  came,  and  Brazil  is 
no  longer  a  Portuguese  colony,  although  there  are  more 
Portuguese  there  than  in  Portugal.  Portuguese  East 
Africa  will  become  independent  as  soon  as  it  wants  in- 
dependence. .  .  .  The  old  fort  in  Mozambique 
has  been  assaulted  and  captured  by  the  Arabs  many 
times.  This  section  was  formerly  the  center  of  the 
slave  trade.  The  Arabs  began  stealing  the  natives  of 
East  Africa  and  selling  them  as  slaves,  but  the  Portu- 
guese saw  that  the  traffic  was  profitable,  and  the  two 
rivals  for  supremacy  in  what  became  a  world  industry, 
often  clashed.  It  is  related  that  on  one  occasion  the 
Arabs  besieged  Mozambique  fort  many  months,  and 
when  the  garrison  surrendered,  only  three  of  its  de- 
fenders were  left.  There  are  no  better  fighters  than 
the  Arabs ;  they  made  up  the  armies  with  which  Ma- 
homet and  his  successors  almost  captured  the  world. 
The  Mohammedan  influence  is  still  strongjhere ;  every- 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          371 

where  we  see  black  men  wearing  the  red  cap  which  in- 
dicates the  Mohammedan.  Occasionally  the  red  fez  is 
supplanted  by  a  white  embroidered  cap,  indicating  that 
its  owner  has  visited  Mecca,  the  holy  city.  On  the 
ship,  most  of  the  deck  passengers  are  Mohammedans, 
and  we  often  see  them  at  their  prayers.  A  Moham- 
medan is  as  proud  of  his  religion  as  a  Salvation  Army 
man,  and  when  he  is  not  praying,  he  reads  the  Koran 
with  as  much  interest  as  a  Christian  Scientist  reads 
"Science  and  Health."  As  Christians  say  of  the  Bible, 
and  Christian  Scientists  say  of  Mrs.  Eddy's  book,  ev- 
ery reading  of  the  Koran  displays  new  beauties.  .  .  . 
Among  our  deck  passengers,  the  only  one  who  has  been 
to  Mecca  is  a  big  negro,  and  he  is  as  devout  as  a  Meth- 
odist class-leader.  He  has  a  prayer-rug,  and  seems  to 
loan  it  to  the  Indians.  Both  the  negroes  and  Indians 
should  be  ashamed  to  accept  the  Mohammedan  re- 
ligion, for  it  is  a  mark  left  on  them  by  conquerors. 
Mohammedan  Indians  associate  freely  with  negroes, 
but  the  Indians  who  have  remained  true  to  Hinduism 
do  not.  ...  In  the  history  of  the  human  race, 
probably  more  cruelty  was  practiced  in  the  slave  trade 
between  Mozambique  and  Zanzibar  than  anywhere 
else  in  the  world.  And  the  negroes  in  the  interior  do 
not  seem  to  be  any  more  capable  of  defense  now  than 
they  were  when  anyone  was  at  liberty  to  enslave  them. 
Human  slavery  is  no  longer  practiced,  either  because 
of  civilization  among  the  stronger  races,  or  because  it 
doesn't  pay.  Why  should  a  planter  go  to  the  expense 
of  buying  slaves  when  he  can  hire  a  black  laborer  for 
$2  a  month,  and  confine  him  to  quarters,  and  make  him 
work  as  many  hours  as  he  chooses?  This  is  done  in 


372  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

British  territory  all  over  Africa.  ...  In  Mozam- 
bique we  visited  the  public  market,  and  found  that 
many  of  the  negro  women  had  their  faces  whitened 
like  circus  clowns,  in  order  to  look  like  white  people. 
Adelaide  weighs  only  a  hundred  pounds,  and  has  rather 
a  small  waist,  and  all  the  negro  women  thought  her 
waist  was  disgracefully  small.  One  of  them  asked  if 
she  might  measure  it  with  a  string.  Permission  being 
granted,  and  the  measurement  made,  the  string  was 
passed  around,  and  attracted  a  babble  of  disgusted 
comment  from  black  ladies  with  the  middle-age  spread. 
.  .  .  Young  chickens  were  sold  at  the  market  at 
eighteen  cents  each,  and  everything  else  was  equally 
cheap.  Mozambique  is  built  on  a  coral  island,  three 
miles  from  the  mainland,  and  everything  is  brought  in 
by  boats.  .  .  .  The  Englishman  is  a  grave  sort  of 
person,  and  has  little  sense  of  humor,  but  Sammy 
Marks,  the  theatrical  man,  made  me  laugh  today.  In 
walking  about  Mozambique,  we  came  across  a  school  in 
which  forty  children  of  all  races  were  reciting  in  chorus 
to  an  Arab  teacher  seated  on  the  floor.  "Children," 
Mr.  Marks  said  to  them,  "don't  you  know  this  is  a 
free  day?  Sammy  Marks  is  in  town,  and  you  can  take 
your  books  and  go  home."  Some  of  the  children  un- 
derstood the  words  "free  day,"  apparently,  for  after  a 
little  preliminary  chatter,  every  child  in  the  room 
dashed  out  the  front  door,  leaving  the  teacher  to  won- 
der what  had  happened.  The  English  are  great  in 
commerce  and  war,  but  I  never  before  knew  one  who 
had  a  real  sense  of  humor.  .  .  .  One  of  the  pas- 
sengers on  the  "Burgermeister"  is  a  Frenchman,  and 
as  he  sits  at  our  table,  we  know  him  very  well.  He  is 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          373 

an  old  traveler,  and  knows  how  to  handle  ship  servants. 
He  eats  more  food,  and  drinks  more  wine,  than  any 
other  human  being  I  have  ever  been  acquainted  with. 
But  he  is  a  very  polite  man,  and  speaks  German  as 
well  as  French,  so  that  he  is  of  the  greatest  assistance 
when  I  get  into  difficulty  with  the  German  waiters. 
He  is  always  buying  champagne,  and  has  five  or  six 
boxes  of  cigars  in  his  cabin.  He  usually  has  not  only 
his  waiter  hovering  over  him  when  in  the  dining-room, 
but  the  chief  steward  as  well,  and  his  capacity  for  get- 
ting what  he  wants  is  so  great  that  he  amuses  me,  al- 
though an  electrical  engineer  at  the  same  table  is  mad 
at  him,  and  talks  about  a  personal  encounter.  .  .  . 
I  visited  Mozambique  with  Sammy  Marks,  the  the- 
atrical manager  from  Capetown,  and  theatrical  men 
are  usually  able  to  get  what  is  coming  to  them.  But 
Sammy  Marks  could  not  find  a  ricksha  for  hire  in  Mo- 
zambique. We  saw  plenty  of  rickshas,  but  were  told 
that  they  were  privately  owned.  Just  as  we  acknowl- 
edged that  rickshas  were  an  impossibility  in  Mozam- 
bique, along  came  the  Frenchman  in  one.  Learning 
that  Mrs.  Marks  and  Adelaide  were  very  tired,  he  gal- 
lantly turned  his  vehicle  over  to  them.  He  went  away 
for  a  few  minutes,  but  soon  came  back  riding  in  another 
ricksha,  and  continued  with  us  in  it  until  we  returned 
to  the  boat-landing.  Mrs.  Marks  speaks  French  like 
a  native,  having  been  born  in  Paris,  and  when  I  make 
a  remark  at  table  that  interests  her,  she  translates  it  to 
the  Frenchman.  One  day  I  was  asked  to  tell  an 
"American  story,"  and  it  happened  to  greatly  amuse 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Marks.  The  Frenchman  did  not  catch 
the  "story,"  saying  I  talked  too  fast  in  telling  it. 


374  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

Thereupon  Mrs.  Marks  translated  it,  and  the  French- 
man was  convulsed  with  laughter.  Mrs.  Marks  telling 
my  "story"  in  French,  and  the  Frenchman  listening 
seriously  and  intently,  was  a  very  amusing  experience 
to  me.  .  .  .  When  we  were  ready  to  return  to  the 
ship,  we  found  the  tide  out,  and  the  Arab  boatmen  car- 
ried us  to  their  boats.  One  boatman,  in  carrying  a 
very  fat  woman,  stumbled  and  fell  in  the  water,  and 
the  fat  woman  was  soaked.  .  .  .  Arriving  at  the 
"Burgermeister,"  my  boatman  demanded  800  reis  for 
carrying  two  of  us  to  the  town  and  back.  The  amount 
startled  me,  but  it  turned  out  that  800  reis  amounts  to 
only  ninety-six  cents  in  American  money.  ...  A 
Portuguese  gentleman  became  a  passenger  on  the  "Bur- 
germeister"  at  Mozambique,  and  a  number  of  friends 
came  aboard  to  say  good-by.  They  were  so  busy 
drinking  hi  the  smoking-room  that  they  did  not  note  the 
whistle  which  blew  for  visitors  to  depart ;  so  when  we 
were  a  mile  out,  we  were  compelled  to  stop,  and  signal 
for  a  tug  to  come  after  them.  As  the  visitors  departed 
each  one  embraced  his  friend  again,  with  great  delib- 
eration. Meanwhile  Captain  Ulrich  was  walking  the 
bridge,  swearing  like  a  pirate.  Just  when  it  was 
thought  the  captain  would  explode  with  indignation, 
he  was  told  that  the  mail  had  not  been  sent  on  board, 
and  he  was  actually  compelled  to  turn  the  huge  ship 
around  and  return  to  the  harbor,  where  we  whistled 
ten  minutes  before  the  sleepy  Portuguese  put  off  in  a 
boat  to  see  what  the  noise  was  about.  We  were  de- 
layed an  hour  and  a  half  by  the  sleepy  Portuguese, 
and  nearly  everyone  on  board  is  cursing  them.  The 
Portuguese  are  everywhere  regarded  as  slow  and  un- 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          375 

enterprising,  and  countries  controlled  by  them  do  not 
prosper.  ...  I  shall  long  remember  Mozambique 
as  the  quaintest  town  I  have  ever  visited.  I  had  never 
heard  of  it,  therefore  it  was  a  surprise. 


THURSDAY,  APRIL  10. — I  awoke  very  early  this  morn- 
ing, and  found  unloading  in  progress  at  Port  Amelia. 
The  deck  passengers  were  up,  as  it  was  necessary  to 
disturb  them  in  order  to  remove  the  hatches  and  get 
at  the  cargo.  But  when  we  are  at  sea,  the  deck  pas- 
sengers divide  the  space  over  the  forward  hatch,  and 
make  rooms  for  themselves  with  bundles  and  boxes. 
Some  of  them  have  carpets  in  their  bundles,  and  nearly 
all  of  them  have  bedding.  A  tarpaulin  forms  a  cov- 
ering over  them,  and  at  night  their  quarters  are  lighted 
by  a  bunch  of  electric  lights.  It  is  surprising  how  well 
these  deck  passengers  get  along,  and  how  comfortable 
they  are.  They  may  buy  supplies  of  the  ship  steward, 
and  seem  to  have  plenty  to  eat.  Most  of  them  are 
going  back  to  India,  which  is  not  far  away  from  this 
coast.  It  was  from  India  that  the  small  Arab  boats 
came,  after  the  Mohammedan  conquest,  and  made 
slaves  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  the  people  of  the 
East  Coast  of  Africa.  .  .  .  Here  is  an  exact  de- 
scription of  a  dinner  I  saw  six  Indians  eat  yesterday 
evening:  They  squatted  around  a  large  pan  of  rice, 
which  had  been  cooking  most  of  the  afternoon  on  the 
galley  stove.  In  the  centre  of  the  rice  was  placed  a 
small  pan  containing  a  yellow  liquid ;  probably  curry. 
In  the  curry-pan  was  a  spoon,  and  the  diners  used  this 


376  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

spoon  to  ladle  out  the  curry  into  the  rice.  Each  man 
covered  the  portion  of  rice  in  front  of  him  with  curry, 
and  then  stirred  up  the  mass  with  his  fingers,  in  order 
that  the  curry  might  be  thoroughly  mixed  with  the 
rice.  The  diners  were  very  polite ;  when  one  of  them 
used  the  spoon,  he  passed  it  on  to  the  man  next  to  him. 
The  rice  and  curry  being  thoroughly  mixed,  the  diners 
made  it  into  balls  with  their  fingers,  and  put  it  in  their 
mouths.  During  the  meal  they  discussed  the  gossip 
of  the  day  in  the  most  animated  manner,  as  do  diners 
who  have  many  articles  of  food,  served  with  plate  and 
silver.  One  old  Hindu  in  the  party  doesn't  seem  to  be 
very  well,  and  he  soon  retired  from  the  circle,  and  three 
others  followed  him  not  long  after,  but  two  young 
fellows  remained  until  both  pans  were  scraped  clean. 
Civilized  men  eat  a  great  variety  of  food,  but  the  more 
primitive  races  do  not  seem  to  care  for  it.  ...  Port 
Amelia  is  located  in  the  finest  harbor  I  have  seen  in 
Africa,  but  it  is  in  the  wilds,  and  does  not  amount  to 
much.  The  place  was  founded  by  a  major  in  the  Eng- 
lish army,  who  had  been  cashiered  for  bad  conduct. 
He  sold  his  rights  to  a  British  company,  which  secured 
a  franchise  for  a  railroad  to  Lake  Nyanza,  and  hopes 
to  finally  be  able  to  finance  the  venture."  Any  story 
of  the  American  frontier  may  be  duplicated  in  Africa ; 
adventurers  are  bold,  and  capital  timid.  Several  Arab 
boats  which  seemed  to  be  hundreds  of  years  old,  came 
off  after  cargo.  These  boats  do  not  exceed  sixty  or 
seventy  feet  in  length,  and  sail  all  along  the  coast  and 
to  India.  Several  of  the  passengers  accompanied  Cap- 
tain Ulrich  ashore  before  breakfast.  The  captain  is  an 
enthusiastic  photographer,  and  takes  pictures  in  natural 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          377 

colors  with  an  ordinary  camera.  Anyone  may  do  it 
by  using  the  special  plates  which  are  sold  in  most  trade 
centres.  The  captain  sells  his  pictures  in  Germany 
for  very  good  prices.  .  .  .  Port  Amelia  was  a 
short  horse,  and  soon  curried,  and  by  10  A.  M.  we  were 
out  at  sea  again,  being  entertained  by  a  Hindu  fakir 
who  obtained  permission  to  come  up  on  our  deck. 
This  man  has  been  my  neighbor  ever  since  I  came 
aboard  at  Beira ;  he  is  camped  on  deck,  with  his  family, 
in  front  of  my  window.  He  has  a  wife,  a  daughter  of 
fourteen,  a  son  of  twenty,  and  a  son  of  nine,  and  an 
old  retainer  who  seems  to  be  half  cook  and  half  as- 
sistant. My  neighbor  proved  to  be  the  cleverest  man 
of  his  class  I  had  ever  seen.  The  collection  amounted 
to  only  $2.50,  and  the  old  man  was  considerably  dis- 
appointed, saying  he  did  better  in  the  second  cabin 
the  day  before.  The  son  of  twenty  attempted  a  trick, 
but  failed  to  do  it,  and  was  hooted  by  the  passengers. 
Then  the  father  attempted  it,  and  succeeded  without 
any  difficulty.  The  old  fakir  knew  me,  having  seen 
me  in  my  room  many  times,  from  his  quarters  on  deck, 
and  addressed  most  of  his  conversation  to  me  while 
doing  his  tricks.  He  talks  a  little  of  half  a  dozen  lan- 
guages, and  Sammy  Marks,  the  theatrical  manager,  says 
the  old  fellow  would  prove  a  drawing  card  at  any 
theatre.  .  .  .  There  is  a  woman  on  board  who  is 
said  to  resemble  the  late  Queen  Victoria.  I  think  she 
started  the  story  herself,  as  she  seems  very  proud  of 
the  alleged  resemblance.  .  .  .  The  people  on  this 
ship  are  much  politer,  and  much  quieter,  than  were  the 
passengers  on  the  English  ship  "Anchises,"  on  which 
we  sailed  from  Australia  to  South  Africa.  The  Eng- 


378  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

lish  go  crazy  about  ship  sports,  and  greatly  annoy  those 
who  want  to  be  quiet,  but  the  Germans  are  more  con- 
siderate of  others. 


FRIDAY,  APRIL  11. — We  have  spent  this  day  in  the 
open  sea.  Usually  we  are  hi  sight  of  land,  but  if  there 
has  been  any  in  sight  today  I  have  not  seen  it.  There 
was  a  rain-storm  this  morning,  but  it  soon  passed  away. 
This  is  our  fifth  day  out,  but  the  sea  has  been  re- 
markably smooth;  I  have  never  seen  it  equally  gra- 
cious, either  on  the  Pacific  or  the  Atlantic.  We  have 
not  had  enough  motion  to  disturb  the  weakest  stomach, 
and  I  shall  always  remember  the  Indian  ocean  with 
gratitude.  The  weather  has  been  hot,  but  usually  we 
can  find  enough  breeze  to  be  comfortable.  A  good 
many  slept  on  deck  last  night,  finding  their  cabins 
stuffy.  .  .  .  The  leader  of  the  band  and  orchestra 
is  a  waiter  in  the  dining-room.  I  cannot  understand 
why  a  man  able  to  lead  a  very  good  orchestra  with  a 
violin,  and  a  very  good  band  with  a  cornet,  is  compelled 
to  work  as  a  waiter.  The  bass  player  in  both  organ- 
izations is  our  table  steward,  and  he  is  very  capable, 
although  he  cannot  speak  a  word  of  English.  .  .  . 
There  are  eight  at  our  table.  One  was  born  in  France, 
one  in  Alsace-Lorraine,  one  in  Scotland,  one  hi  England, 
one  in  Wales,  one  in  Spain,  and  two  in  America.  One 
of  the  ladies  traveled  three  years  hi  India  and  two  hi 
Australia,  with  a  circus  owned  by  her  husband,  and 
did  a  riding  act.  She  is  now  a  widow,  and  conducts 
a  riding-school  in  Johannesburg.  One  of  the  men  is 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          379 

a  Johannesburg  electrical  engineer,  on  his  way  to 
America  to  study  late  developments  in  the  science. 
Another  is  Sammy  Marks,  a  theatrical  manager,  who 
will  shortly  open  a  new  theatre  at  Nairobi,  British  East 
Africa.  This  town  is  350  miles  inland  from  Mom- 
basa, and  on  the  way  there  he  will  pass  by  rail  through 
as  good  a  game  country  as  there  is  in  Africa.  His 
wife  looks  and  talks  like  an  American  girl,  and,  being 
accused  of  it  by  me,  replied  that  she  was  glad  of  it. 
She  was  born  in  Paris,  but  has  lived  in  Africa  since  she 
was  a  little  girl.  Still  another  man  at  our  table  is  the 
Frenchman  before  referred  to,  one  of  the  politest  and 
oddest  characters  I  have  ever  known.  He  is  an  auto- 
mobile agent,  and  told  me  that  on  his  present  trip  he 
sold  eighty-five  machines  in  Africa.  He  doesn't  like 
fhe  Germans  on  the  ship,  and  makes  them  all  the 
trouble  he  possibly  can.  One  day  at  dinner  he  ordered 
fish,  and  six  different  kinds  of  meat,  which  he  nibbled 
at,  and  sent  away.  He  always  drinks  two  kinds  of 
wine  at  dinner,  and  sometimes  three.  He  keeps  the 
waiter  so  busy  that  the  others  at  the  table  complain 
of  neglect.  The  food  on  the  "Burgermeister"  is  sur- 
prisingly good  and  abundant.  ...  I  suppose  there  was 
never  a  chief  steward  on  an  ocean-going  vessel  who  was 
not  a  mean  man.  He  it  is  who  must  say  "no"  when 
passengers  become  unreasonable.  When  a  woman  com- 
plains to  a  retail  grocer  of  one  of  his  clerks,  the  grocer 
sides  with  the  woman,  but  at  heart  he  believes  the  clerk 
was  right.  It  is  the  same  way  when  a  passenger  com- 
plains to  the  captain  of  the  chief  steward :  the  captain 
is  sympathetic,  but  believes  the  steward  is  right.  Our 
chief  steward  is  a  big,  good-natured  man,  and  while 


380  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

we  are  all  in  league  against  him,  we  are  disposed  to  like 
him.  The  captain  is  not  only  the  youngest  man  I  have 
ever  seen  in  command  of  a  ship,  but  the  best-looking. 
The  chief  officer  is  not  over  thirty  years  old.  All  the 
members  of  the  crew  are  young,  and  speak  enough 
English  to  "get  along"  after  a  fashion  with  the  Eng- 
lish passengers.  One  woman  ordered  a  cup  of  tea,  and 
the  waiter  brought  her  two  bottles  of  whisky,  opened. 
Another  woman  ordered  a  plate  of  crackers,  and  the 
waiter  brought  her  a  whisky  and  soda.  These  are 
cases  you  hear  of;  I  have  had  no  trouble,  and  con- 
gratulate myself  that  I  chose  a  German  ship  instead 
of  an  English  one.  There  is  a  quiet  gentility  about  the 
passengers  I  greatly  admire.  I  heard  before  coming 
on  board  that  there  would  be  no  English-speaking 
passengers.  Nearly  all  of  them  speak  English,  and  the 
bill  of  fare  is  printed  in  English,  as  well  as  in  German. 
The  African  trip  is  not  an  advisable  one,  owing  to  the 
great  distances,  but  anyone  who  makes  it  in  spite  of 
my  advice  to  the  contrary,  should  go  home  by  the  East 
Coast  in  a  German  boat.  .  .  .  There  are  a  large 
number  of  young  men  on  board,  and  all  of  them  well- 
behaved.  There  are  only  two  girls  on  board,  and  only 
ten  women  altogether.  The  orchestra-  plays  every 
night,  and  there  is  usually  dancing;  the  five  dancing 
women  receive  a  lot  of  attention.  .  .  .  The  feel- 
ing between  the  English  and  Germans  is  more  intense 
than  I  expected  to  find  it.  When  an  Englishman  asked 
me  what  would  be  the  attitude  of  the  United  States 
in  case  of  war  between  Germany  and  England,  I  was 
amused,  but  since  then  a  dozen  have  asked  me  the  same 
question.  They  all  seem  to  think  the  United  States 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.  381 

should  assist  the  English.  On  one  of  the  ships  of  the 
German  East  Africa  line,  a  few  weeks  ago,  there  was 
an  incident  which  might  have  precipitated  the  long- 
talked  of  war  between  Germany  and  England.  Among 
the  passengers  were  several  Englishmen ;  one  of  them 
with  a  title.  On  this  line  it  is  a  habit  among  the  women 
to  drink  coffee  after  dinner  in  the  smoking-room.  The 
Englishmen  did  something  that  was  considered  offen- 
sive by  the  German  women,  and,  the  captain  hearing 
of  it,  he  promptly  called  the  Englishmen  to  account. 
The  Englishmen  were  furious;  particularly  the  one 
with  a  title.  He  said  the  women  had  no  business  in 
the  smoking-room ;  that  he  had  done  nothing  offensive, 
and  would  not  be  corrected  by  anyone,  captain  or  no 
captain.  The  captain  also  had  a  temper,  and  he  re- 
plied that  if  a  titled  Englishman  didn't  know  the  ordi- 
nary rules  of  politeness,  he  would  teach  him.  The  two 
men  glared  at  each  other  a  few  moments,  and  the  inci- 
dent was  closed,  but  it  might  easily  have  resulted  in 
serious  trouble ;  if  the  captain  had  put  Sir  Thomas  in 
irons,  an  international  complication  might  have  arisen 
speedily.  The  Germans  have  hasty  tempers,  and  are 
slow  to  apologize ;  the  same  thing  may  be  said  of  the 
English,  and  both  have  a  very  good  opinion  of  their 
fighting  ability;  with  Germany  rather  in  the  lead  in 
conceit,  since  the  Boer  war.  .  .  .  This  morning 
the  band  played  a  selection  which  closed  with  "God 
Save  the  King."  Two  Englishmen  who  sat  near  me, 
arose  to  their  feet,  and  stood  until  the  hymn  was  fin- 
ished. Yesterday  the  band  played  "  The  Watch  on  the 
Rhine,"  but  the  Germans  paid  no  attention  to  it ;  they 
did  not  even  applaud.  Last  night  the  band  played 


382  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

"The  American  Patrol,"  closing  with  "The  Star- 
Spangled  Banner,"  but  the  two  Americans  on  board 
paid  the  air  no  special  attention.  ...  A  printed 
notice  was  placed  on  the  bulletin  board  this  afternoon, 
stating  that  Law  mass  will  be  celebrated  in  the  ladies' 
parlor  next  Sunday,  at  10 :  30  A.  M.  There  was  great 
curiosity  to  know  the  meaning  of  Law  mass.  Being 
a  printer,  and  accustomed  to  the  mistakes  of  printers, 
I  was  able  to  solve  the  riddle :  the  printer  should  have 
set  up  the  word  "low"  instead  of  "law."  The  mys- 
tery was  nothing  more  than  a  typographical  error. 
.  .  .  There  is  a  bride  and  groom  on  board,  and  the 
fact  that  one  or  the  other  is  sulking  most  of  the  time 
has  attracted  a  good  deal  of  attention.  .  .  .  One  pas- 
senger has  attracted  everyone's  admiration  because 
he  is  a  fine  walker.  Most  people  walk  in  a  very  awk- 
ward manner,  but  this  man,  a  Portuguese  count,  walks 
with  so  much  grace  as  to  attract  compliments.  .  .  . 
At  9  o'clock  tonight  we  came  to  Zanzibar,  and  were 
at  once  surrounded  by  the  usual  crowd  of  screaming 
boatmen.  Near  us  was  anchored  the  steamer  for 
Bombay,  and  the  Hindu  deck  passengers  packed  up 
and  departed.  I  shall  miss  them  every  morning  when 
I  look  out  of  my  window;  they  came  to  know  me,  I 
was  so  close  a  neighbor.  The  Hindu  juggler  was  my 
favorite :  he  had  a  far-away  look  that  would  have  be- 
come a  mystic.  The  big  negro  Mohammedan  who  took 
so  much  pride  in  his  prayers  also  stood  high  in  my  esti- 
mation, as  he  was  a  very  dignified  and  quiet  man.  I 
went  down  to  the  gang-plank,  and  said  good-by  to 
these  two  as  they  disembarked  carrying  their  pans  and 
pots,  and  boxes  and  bundles.  .  .  .  Some  of  the 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          383 

passengers  went  ashore,  but  I  remained  and  listened 
to  the  band  concert,  and  watched  the  unusual  scene 
of  activity  about  the  ship.  The  men  engaged  in  un- 
loading are  mainly  Mohammedan  negroes,  and  they 
make  more  noise  and  do  less  work  than  any  other 
workmen  I  know  anything  about.  They  not  only 
scream  all  the  time,  but  keep  up  a  sort  of  song.  At 
intervals  they  all  quit  the  work  on  which  they  are  en- 
gaged and  clap  their  hands  in  unison. 


SATURDAY,  APRIL  12. — Zanzibar  is  unusual  in  many 
ways,  but  not  as  unusual  as  I  expected  it  to  be.  I 
measured  several  of  its  streets  this  morning,  and  found 
them  nine  feet  wide.  These  were  mainly  residence 
streets ;  the  principal  business  streets  are  a  little  wider, 
and  automobiles  run  in  them.  I  met  a  gentleman 
named  Hay  in  Zanzibar,  an  official  of  the  cable  com- 
pany, and  called  at  his  home  several  times.  He  lives 
in  the  queerest  house  I  have  ever  seen.  It  fronts  on 
the  sea,  and  was  built  and  occupied  many  years  by  an 
Arab  gentleman.  The  house  is  enormous  in  size,  and 
some  of  its  rooms  must  be  thirty  or  forty  feet  square  ; 
it  amused  me  immensely  to  see  a  dining-table,  set  for 
two,  in  the  centre  of  the  enormous  dining-room ;  Mr. 
Hay  has  no  children,  and  he  and  his  wife  are  the  sole 
occupants  of  the  big  house,  except  that  four  native 
servants  slip  about  as  quietly  as  mice.  In  the  centre 
of  the  house  is  an  enormous  court,  open  to  the  sun- 
light, and  when  I  visited  the  place  we  used  to  run  across 
this,  to  avoid  sunstroke.  The  bath-room  of  the  house 


384  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

is  another  large  room,  with  a  depression  and  drain  in 
the  cement  floor ;  every  floor  in  the  house  is  of  cement 
and  the  walls  of  rough  stucco  plastered  outside  and 
inside.  The  water  for  bathing  is  carried  to  the  Hay 
home  by  negro  women,  and  for  this  service  they  re- 
ceive three  shillings  a  month,  or  seventy-two  cents. 
The  women  carry  the  water  on  their  heads,  in  Stand- 
ard Oil  tins,  and  have  the  best  figures  in  the  world, 
because  of  their  habit  of  carrying  loads  on  their  heads. 
In  the  Hay  house,  as  in  all  the  other  homes  in  Zanzibar, 
there  is  a  roof  garden,  where  the  dwellers  go  when  the 
nights  are  excessively  hot.  The  Hay  servants  re- 
ceive $1.25  a  month,  and  board  themselves.  Mr.  Hay 
told  me  they  were  great  thieves;  most  of  the  other 
white  people  I  met  in  Africa  spoke  highly  of  the  hon- 
esty of  the  blacks.  The  approach  to  the  house  is  a 
crooked  street  nine  feet  wide,  and  the  front  door  an 
elaborate  affair  of  bronze.  An  Arab  invests  a  great 
deal  of  his  money  in  his  front  door,  as  river  pilots  are 
said  to  invest  most  of  their  money  in  watch  chains. 
This  queer,  rambling  house  rents  for  $20  a  month. 
While  sitting  on  its  veranda,  looking  out  to  sea,  a  war- 
ship lying  only  a  few  hundred  yards  away  fired  a  salute 
of  a  dozen  guns,  and  caused  Adelaide  to  scream,  as 
the  guns  were  pointed  directly  at  us.  ...  Mr. 
Hay  has  lived  on  the  edge  of  the  east  fifteen  or  twenty 
years,  as  an  employee  of  the  cable  company,  and  says 
that  in  his  bachelor  days  he  never  shaved  or  put  on 
socks  except  when  a  ship  was  expected  in  the  harbor. 
The  arrival  of  a  ship  in  these  far-away  places  is  a  big 
event  to  the  white  residents,  as  they  nearly  always 
dine  aboard,  and  hear  gossip  from  home.  .  .  , 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          385 

Zanzibar,  the  town,  is  not  as  large  as  I  expected  to  find 
it.  I  don't  know  how  many  blacks  are  scattered  over 
Zanzibar  island,  which  is  50  miles  long  and  25  broad, 
but  the  total  white  population  amounts  to  less  than  one 
hundred  and  fifty.  Of  white  women  and  girls,  there 
are  only  fifteen;  and  all  of  them  smoke  cigarettes, 
one  citizen  told  me.  When  I  meet  a  woman  over  here 
who  smokes  cigarettes,  I  am  usually  told  that  her  hus- 
band is  coaxing  her  to  quit  the  habit.  While  in  Zan- 
zibar, the  subject  of  women  smoking  cigarettes  came 
up,  and  several  men  said  to  me:  "My  sisters  never 
smoke;  they  would  as  soon  think  of  cutting  their 
throats."  I  have  rarely  known  a  woman  cigarette- 
smoker  who  did  not  tell  me  that  her  husband  objected. 
Nice  women  smoke,  but  they  would  be  nicer  if  they 
didn't.  Cigarette-smoking  in  women  seems  to  be 
associated  more  or  less  with  drinking :  I  sat  in  a  party 
one  night,  at  one  of  our  stopping-places,  and  one 
woman  drank  five  high-balls,  in  addition  to  smoking 
nearly  a  box  of  cigarettes.  .  .  .  There  is  one  nar- 
row, crooked  street  in  Zanzibar  which  is  occupied  en- 
tirely by  Hindus.  The  street  is  so  narrow  that  a  car- 
riage cannot  be  driven  through  it,  and  the  shops  of 
the  tradesmen  are  very  small;  a  merchant  may  sit 
in  the  middle  of  his  shop,  and  reach  everything  it  con- 
tains. Many  of  the  occupants  of  the  street  are  jew- 
elers, and  manufacture  very  wonderful  articles  with 
very  simple  tools.  Leading  off  the  street  referred  to 
are  other  narrow  streets,  and  there  is  nothing  more 
curious  in  Cairo  or  Delhi.  Prices  are  actually  very 
high  in  Zanzibar,  unless  you  haggle  with  the  merchants. 
One  woman  who  was  asked  $35  for  a  cat's-eye,  finally 


386  TRAVEL  LETTERS  PROM 

paid  $5  for  it ;  another  was  asked  $7.50  for  an  opal, 
and  got  it  for  $1.25.  A  professional  horse-trader  might 
do  well  as  a  shopper  in  Zanzibar,  but  the  ordinary  trav- 
eler is  robbed.  In  San  Francisco  are  curio  stores  dis- 
playing eastern  goods  five  times  larger  than  any  simi- 
lar store  in  Zanzibar.  And  in  San  Francisco  the  one- 
price  system  prevails.  There  are  still  larger  stores  in 
New  York  for  the  sale  of  curious  things  of  Japanese, 
Indian  or  Chinese  manufacture,  and  the  merchants 
are  reliable,  whereas  if  you  attempt  to  buy  anything 
in  Zanzibar,  you  usually  deal  with  a  rogue.  ...  I 
had  an  automobile  ride  in  Zanzibar  I  shall  always  re- 
member. We  drove  across  the  island,  a  distance  of 
twenty-four  miles,  and  were  almost  constantly  passing 
through  native  villages.  The  natives  of  Zanzibar  seem 
to  be  more  prosperous  than  the  other  negroes  we  have 
seen,  and  they  have  adopted  all  the  customs  of  the 
strange  races  they  meet  here.  Everywhere  we  saw 
negro  women  hiding  their  faces  behind  veils,  a  custom 
learned  from  the  Hindus.  We  also  saw  negro  women 
with  gold  buttons  in  their  noses,  rings  on  their  toes, 
and  bracelets  on  their  ankles;  they  had  seen  these 
customs  practiced  by  other  women,  and  adopted  them, 
without  any  particular  reason.  .  .  ".  I  believe  I 
saw  more  cocoanut  trees  on  Zanzibar  island  than  I  ever 
before  saw  anywhere ;  and  everywhere  the  people  were 
preparing  copra,  the  dried  meat  of  the  cocoanut. 
Copra  produces  an  oil  used  in  soap-making,  and  is  in 
brisk  demand.  Wherever  we  go  here  we  get  the  dis- 
agreeable smell  of  copra ;  it  reminds  one  of  very  rancid 
butter.  .  .  .  We  also  passed  through  many  miles 
of  clove  trees.  Ninety  per  cent  of  all  the  cloves  pro- 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          387 

duced  in  the  world  are  raised  on  Zanzibar  island,  where 
conditions  are  just  right.  Cloves  are  widely  used  in 
the  manufacture  of  perfumes;  in  nearly  every  per- 
fume is  a  little  of  the  oil  of  clove.  The  clove  trees  are 
eighteen  to  twenty-five  feet  high,  and  do  not  look  un- 
like orange  trees.  The  crop  is  gathered  by  native 
women  and  children,  and  finds  its  way  to  every  por- 
tion of  the  world.  The  island  of  Zanzibar  is  not  un- 
like the  island  of  Ceylon,  of  which  it  reminded  me. 
Rice  is  extensively  grown,  and  the  banana  and  mango 
flourish,  as  do  mosquitoes,  malaria,  donkeys,  goats, 
and  the  inclination  to  go  naked  all  the  year  'round. 
Returning  from  the  automobile  trip,  we  were  late,  and 
the  driver,  a  Hindu,  tore  like  mad  through  the  streets 
of  the  native  villages.  We  lit  our  lamps  at  a  native 
village,  and  entered  Zanzibar  after  nightfall.  Riding 
through  the  narrow  streets  of  this  old  town  after  night, 
in  an  automobile,  was  an  experience  I  shall  always  re- 
member, for  Zanzibar  reminds  every  visitor  of  the  towns 
described  in  "The  Arabian  Nights."  It  is  a  typical 
Arabian  town,  and  there  seems  to  be  a  mystery  and  a 
romance  behind  every  door.  The  town  was  ruled  for 
hundreds  of  years  by  a  Sultan,  until  the  English  took 
charge.  There  is  still  a  sultan,  who  receives  a  salary 
from  the  English  government,  but  some  day  he  will 
be  deposed,  and  there  will  be  no  further  pretense  of  a 
Sultan  having  anything  to  do  with  the  government. 
The  old  palace  of  the  Sultan — an  ugly  affair  which 
looks  like  a  boarding-house — is  used  for  offices  by  the 
British.  Near  the  palace  is  the  harem,  now  deserted, 
since  the  present  Sultan  has  but  one  wife.  The  Sultan 
who  had  trouble  with  the  English  was  educated  in 


388  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

England,  and  spent  much  of  his  time,  and  all  of  his 
revenues,  in  Paris.  One  day  an  English  gunboat  sailed 
into  the  harbor,  and  the  captain  told  the  gay  Sultan 
that  he  had  been  ousted.  The  Sultan  resented  the 
high-handed  proceeding,  and  sent  word  to  the  defend- 
ers of  his  dignity  to  sink  the  English  gunboat  and  put 
the  insolent  captain  in  the  dungeon.  There  was  an 
old  fort  near  the  palace,  on  the  walls  of  which  were 
mounted  a  few  rusty  iron  cannon.  The  defenders  of 
the  Sultan  tried  to  fire  these  at  the  English  gunboat, 
but  they  burst,  one  by  one,  and  almost  wiped  out  the 
Sultan's  defensive  force.  The  captain  of  the  English 
gunboat  then  began  dropping  shells  into  the  palace, 
and,  with  one  solid  shot,  sank  the  Sultan's  navy :  a 
small  vessel  which  carried  four  guns.  The  last  rem- 
nants of  this  wreck  were  being  removed  from  the  har- 
bor the  day  I  was  at  Zanzibar.  .  .  .  Near  the 
middle  of  the  town  is  a  place  called  "The  Gardens." 
It  was  formerly  the  bathing  resort  of  the  wives  of  the 
Sultan.  The  place  is  now  used  as  a  town  hall,  and  I 
went  there  with  Sammy  Marks,  the  theatrical  manager, 
who  wished  to  engage  it  for  an  attraction.  He  paid 
twelve  shillings  for  the  use  of  the  hall.  Dances  are 
also  held  in  the  hall ;  the  bathing-pool  is  covered  with 
planks  when  the  hall  is  rented.  On  other  days,  the 
bathing-pool,  formerly  the  resort  of  the  Sultan's  wives, 
is  used  by  the  school-boys,  and  scattered  around  the 
hall  I  saw  a  good  many  pieces  of  gymnastic  apparatus. 
.  .  .  Our  summer  weather  is  never  as  hot  as  the 
hot  weather  of  Africa.  Whenever  we  go  ashore  we 
carry  a  sunshade,  and,  with  that  protection,  suffer  more 
from  heat  than  we  ever  suffer  at  home.  .  .  .  After 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          389 

our  return  from  the  automobile  trip,  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Hay  were  our  guests  for  dinner  on  the  ship.  They  re- 
mained until  nearly  midnight,  listening  to  the  band 
concert,  and  "visiting."  Their  boatman  was  anxious 
to  go  ashore,  but  Mr.  Hay  dared  him  to;  there  is  a 
law  here  that  a  native  boatman  who  takes  a  passenger 
out  to  a  ship,  must  wait  until  the  passenger  is  ready 
to  return.  .  .  .  This  afternoon  we  drank  tea  with 
an  English  official  on  the  other  side  of  the  island.  The 
official  invited  in  several  other  Englishmen  and  their 
wives.  The  Englishmen  were  very  polite,  but  I  have 
never  felt  more  uncomfortable  in  my  life.  I  didn't 
know  when  we  started  on  the  automobile  ride  that  there 
was  to  be  a  function ;  it  was  arranged  as  an  agreeable 
surprise  by  Mrs.  Hay.  I  am  sure  the  polite  English- 
men enjoyed  the  parting  as  much  as  we  did.  .  .  . 
Dozens  of  native  guides  came  on  board  last  night  and 
this  morning,  offering  their  services.  Most  of  them  had 
big  names;  one  called  himself  George  Washington, 
another  Abraham  Lincoln,  another  Oliver  Cromwell, 
etc.  But  one  quiet,  modest  negro  said  to  the  passen- 
gers: 

"Me  Poor  Charley." 

And  Poor  Charley  was  a  favorite;  everyone  who 
needed  a  guide  tried  to  engage  him. 


SUNDAY,  APRIL  13. — England  and  Germany  are  not 
far  apart  hi  East  Africa.  We  left  Zanzibar,  which 
is  hi  British  territory,  at  5  A.  M.  this  morning.  Four 
hours  later  we  were  in  Dar-es-Salaam,  the  capital  of 


390  TRAVEL  LETTERS  PROM 

German  East  Africa.  I  shall  remember  this  place 
particularly  because  the  ship  entered  its  harbor  through 
an  entrance  which  did  not  seem  to  be  more  than  two 
hundred  feet  wide  in  one  place,  and  because  of  the  great 
number  of  Germans  who  came  aboard,  and  remained 
all  day,  and  nearly  all  night,  drinking  beer  and  singing 
songs.  Most  of  our  German  visitors  wore  uniforms ; 
Germany  uses  more  uniforms  than  any  other  country 
in  the  world,  population  considered.  We  went  ashore 
at  9  A.  M.,  and  found  a  very  pretty  modern  town  with 
the  usual  fifty  blacks  to  one  white.  There  is  a  hotel 
at  this  place  which  is  considered  a  wonder,  and  a  good 
many  of  the  passengers  went  there  for  lunch  or  dinner. 
.  .  .  All  the  time  we  were  walking  about,  black 
ricksha  boys  followed  us,  and  finally  they  proved  a 
blessing  when  a  rain  came  up ;  we  entered  the  vehicles, 
and  went  to  the  hotel,  where  we  found  a  lot  of  our  pas- 
sengers drinking  beer  on  the  verandas.  .  .  .  Cocoa- 
nut  trees  grow  in  great  profusion  here,  and  on  one  I 
counted  fifty-four  nuts.  I  have  always  had  a  notion 
that  four  or  five  nuts  is  a  pretty  good  average  for  a 
cocoanut  tree. 


MONDAY,  APRIL  14. — We  have  been  in  three  differ- 
ent towns  today :  Dar-es-Salaam,  Zanzibar,  and  Tanga. 
We  left  Dar-es-Salaam  at  daylight,  and  stopped  at 
Zanzibar  for  the  mails  at  about  10  A.  M.,  remaining  an 
hour.  Several  of  our  friends  came  on  board,  but  none 
of  the  passengers  went  ashore.  Dozens  of  Indian  mer- 
chants came  out  to  the  ship,  and  worked  rapidly,  as 
they  expected  the  whistle  to  blow  any  moment.  The 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          391 

passengers  also  shopped  rapidly,  having  heard  that 
goods  might  be  had  at  low  prices  during  this  brief 
shopping  period.  Hundreds  of  purchases,  mostly  of 
useless  trifles,  were  made.  Most  travelers  are  as  par- 
ticular to  buy  presents  for  all  their  friends  as  they  are 
to  remember  them  at  Christmas-time.  When  the 
whistle  finally  blew,  there  was  a  scramble  of  merchants 
and  their  assistants  to  get  into  the  little  boats,  and  one 
man  was  compelled  to  jump  and  swim  for  it.  Many 
of  the  passengers  ordered  clothing  of  the  Zanzibar 
tailors,  on  Saturday,  which  was  delivered  today.  A 
pants  and  coat  of  white  duck,  so  generally  worn  here, 
cost  $2.50  for  the  best  quality,  and  as  low  as  $1.75  a 
suit  for  lighter  material.  The  ladies  also  ordered 
skirts,  and  the  charge  was  $2.25.  .  .  .  At  11  A.  M. 
we  left  Zanzibar,  and  six  hours  later  were  at  Tanga, 
also  in  German  East  Africa.  We  have  made  very 
little  progress  in  the  last  three  days,  our  time  being 
devoted  to  loading  freight.  But  I  think  we  took  on 
most  of  all  at  Tanga.  All  through  the  night  the  steam 
winches  were  going,  and  they  did  not  cease  work  until 
after  breakfast.  One  gang  of  men  slept  while  the 
other  worked.  The  forward  winches  are  not  many 
feet  from  my  cabin  window,  and  all  through  the  night 
there  was  a  tremendous  racket,  but,  greatly  to  my  sur- 
prise, I  slept  fairly  well.  .  .  .  The  usual  uni- 
formed Germans  came  on  board  at  Tanga,  and  visited 
our  officers.  At  Dar-es-Salaam  and  Tanga  every  va- 
cant berth  on  the  ship  was  filled  with  a  German,  and 
several  are  sleeping  in  the  music-room.  Five  of  the 
new  passengers  are  babies,  and  several  of  the  others 
are  Kaffir  nurses.  One  of  these  nurses  is  a  man  with 


TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 


whiskers,  and  certainly  six  feet  high.  To  see  him  car- 
ing for  a  baby  is  very  amusing.  Still  another  new  pas- 
senger is  a  Kaffir  girl,  a  nurse,  but  she  is  so  scantily 
dressed  that  she  has  been  refused  the  run  of  the  upper 
decks.  ...  A  young  German  girl  left  the  ship  at 
Tanga,  and  we  hear  she  is  engaged  to  the  sh,ip  doctor. 
Their  love  affair  has  been  the  subject  of  much  gossip, 
and  when  the  girl  left  for  shore  in  a  small  boat  she 
wept  bitterly.  Bets  of  two  to  one  are  freely  offered 
that  the  engagement  will  not  result  in  marriage.  .  .  . 
There  is  general  relief  because  a  young  bull,  which  has 
been  on  board  ever  since  we  left  Beira,  departed  on  a 
scow  at  Tanga,  after  being  lifted  over  the  sides  by  the 
steam  winches.  The  bull  seemed  to  understand  that 
he  was  about  to  get  rid  of  his  long  confinement  in  a 
narrow  box,  and  behaved  very  decently  while  being 
unloaded.  .  .  .  The  trip  up  the  east  coast  of  Af- 
rica is  distinguished  because  of  its  many  stops,  but 
this  makes  it  a  long  trip.  We  are  becoming  tired,  and 
did  not  go  ashore  at  Tanga. 


TUESDAY,  APRIL  15. — There  must  be  a  tremendous 
amount  of  cargo  on  this  boat.  We  ceased  loading  at 
Tanga  at  9  o'clock  this  morning,  and  at  5  p.  M.  began 
again  at  Mombasa.  At  5 : 15  we  went  down  the  stair- 
way at  the  side  of  the  ship,  and  a  fight  began  among  the 
boatmen  over  our  patronage.  The  negro  crew  of  row- 
boat  No.  5  won,  and  we  went  ashore,  stopping  on  the 
way  at  the  "Adolph  Woerner,"  lying  in  the  harbor. 
Landing,  we  walked  a  block  to  the  street  railway,  which 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA.,  AND  AFRICA.          303 

is  one  of  the  queer  affairs  called  a  "trolley"  over  here, 
although  there  is  no  trolley.  The  street  railway  runs 
from  the  port,  called  Killindini,  to  Mombasa,  a  mile 
and  a  half  away,  and  only  handcars,  pushed  by  native 
men,  are  operated.  There  is  a  double  track,  with 
branches  to  every  important  section  of  Mombasa.  Ev- 
ery citizen  of  importance  owns  one  or  more  handcars, 
called  "trolleys,"  and  these  are  lifted  off  the  track 
when  not  in  use,  and  you  see  them  standing  every- 
where about  the  town.  The  fare  up-town  by  trolley  is 
not  five  cents,  as  is  the  case  in  the  United  States,  where 
the  people  are  mercilessly  robbed  by  the  corporations ; 
the  fare  is  forty-eight  cents  per  passenger,  after  6  P.  M., 
and  twenty-four  cents  during  the  day.  Three  men 
pushed  our  trolley,  and,  when  they  came  to  a  piece  of 
down-hill  track,  they  all  rode.  We  had  employed  a 
black  boy  as  guide  at  the  landing,  at  thirty-six  cents 
an  hour,  and  when  we  struck  an  up-hill  piece  of  track, 
the  guide  also  helped  push.  Thus  with  four  men  we 
got  along  very  well,  and  were  soon  in  the  heart  of  old 
Mombasa,  said  to  have  been  besieged  oftener  than  any 
other  town  in  the  world ;  which  is  a  pretty  good  story, 
if  true,  for  there  is  fairly  accurate  authority  for  the 
statement  that  Jerusalem  has  been  besieged  and  taken 
fifty  times.  .  .  .  The  trolley  system  of  Mombasa 
stops  at  the  postoffice ;  we  left  our  car  there,  and  walked 
into  the  old  part  of  the  town.  In  Zanzibar  the  streets 
were  crooked,  but  in  the  old  section  of  Mombasa  the 
buildings  seem  to  have  been  built  without  any  order 
whatever.  There  are  no  streets ;  only  spaces  between 
the  buildings,  and  these  are  very  narrow.  The  inhab- 
itants of  the  section  through  which  we  passed  at  about 


39.4  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

6  P.  M.  are  mainly  people  from  India,  and  thousands  of 
children  were  playing  about  the  narrow  passages,  or 
in  the  quaint  shops,  which  were  almost  as  small  as 
shops  set  up  by  children  at  play.  It  was  almost  dark, 
and  the  usual  illumination  in  the  average  shop  was  a 
lantern.  The  shopkeepers  wore  turbans,  and  all  sorts 
of  strange  clothing,  and  there  was  a  touch  of  every 
country  except  the  country  I  am  most  familiar  with. 
I  could  not  have  named  one-tenth  of  the  articles  dis- 
played in  the  shops,  and  in  one  place  a  phonograph 
was  playing  Hindu  airs  as  strange  to  me  as  the  old 
town  of  Mombasa.  We  went  to  a  market  where  hun- 
dreds of  people  were  quarreling  over  food  prices,  and 
where  the  people  seemed  to  come  out  of  foreign  books 
rather  than  out  of  real  life.  Occasionally  we  came 
across  a  wholesale  house,  and  in  the  offices  of  these  we 
saw  Hindus  working  at  typewriters.  Drinking-shops 
abounded,  and  out  of  these  came  drunken  men  who 
leered  at  us  impudently  and  curiously.  There  were  a 
good  many  native  hotels  with  guests  sitting  idly  about. 
Mothers  ran  everywhere  hunting  their  children,  and 
the  streets,  not  much  wider  than  our  sidewalks,  were 
crowded  with  jabbering,  gesticulating  men  and  women 
who  seemed  to  us  to  be  rather  ill-natured.  . .  .  .  We 
passed  an  old  fort  which  looked  as  large  as  Edinburgh 
castle,  in  Scotland ;  Mombasa  is  a  big  town,  and  pros- 
perous, and  its  institutions  are  on  a  large  scale.  The 
guide  said  there  was  a  still  more  interesting  fort  fifteen 
minutes  away,  and  we  went  there  by  trolley.  The 
fort  is  situated  on  the  seashore,  and  only  a  ruin,  but  it 
looked  very  interesting  in  the  moonlight.  The  old 
cannon  used  in  defense  of  the  place,  I  don't  know  how 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          395 

many  centuries  ago,  were  still  looking  grimly  out  of 
ruined  portholes,  and  just  below  the  portholes  the 
waves  were  tumbling  noisily,  as  if  anxious  to  climb  up 
the  rocks  and  complete  the  ruin  of  the  place.  Near 
the  old  fort  was  a  lighthouse,  flashing  its  signals  out  to 
sea,  and  directly  in  front  of  the  lighthouse  was  the 
wreck  of  a  steamship.  The  tide  was  out,  and  we  went 
on  board  for  a  few  minutes.  There  is  probably  noth- 
ing which  so  completely  depicts  ruin  and  desolation  as 
a  wrecked  ship,  lying  on  its  side,  and  stripped  of  every- 
thing of  value  by  vandals  and  the  sea.  We  also  climbed 
up  to  the  lighthouse  tower,  and  the  keeper  showed  us 
the  mechanism.  It  was  the  first  lighthouse  I  have  ever 
inspected  at  close  quarters;  usually  they  are  located 
on  rocks  hard  to  get  to.  .  .  .  When  we  went  back 
to  town,  neither  English  nor  German  money  would 
satisfy  the  trolley-boys,  so  I  went  into  the  shop  of  a 
money-changer,  and  paid  twelve  cents  for  enough  In- 
dian rupees  to  satisfy  my  creditors.  The  three  trolley- 
boys  who  had  taken  us  to  the  old  fort  took  us  to  the 
landing,  at  a  breakneck  speed.  One  of  the  three  rode 
all  the  time,  and  they  relieved  each  other  at  the  work 
of  pushing.  When  the  grade  was  down-hill,  they  all 
rode.  Down  one  long  hill  we  must  have  traveled  at 
the  rate  of  thirty  miles  an  hour.  When  we  left  the 
trolley,  we  were  seized  upon  by  a  boatman  who  had 
wandered  from  the  landing  to  get  the  first  chance  at 
ship  passengers  returning  from  town. 

"Promise  me,  master,"  he  said;  "me  No.  67."  We 
promised,  and  followed  him  to  the  landing.  Other 
boatmen  constantly  joined  our  procession,  and  we  were 
soon  in  the  center  of  a  howling,  fighting  mob,  but  we 


306  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

had  promised  No.  67,  and  were  faithful  to  him.  At 
first,  he  was  one  to  a  hundred,  but  as  we  neared  the 
landing,  his  three  companions  came  to  his  assistance, 
and  we  were  finally  able  to  go  aboard  No.  67.  I  sat  in 
the  stern,  and  handled  the  tiller-ropes,  and  the  ride  out 
to  the  ship  was  cool  and  enjoyable.  .  .  .  Arriving 
at  the  ship,  we  found  it  surrounded  with  freight  barges, 
and  loading  in  furious  progress.  Eight  steam  winches 
were  at  work,  four  forward  and  four  aft,  and  hundreds 
of  screaming  natives  were  swarming  over  the  barges 
and  down  in  the  hold  where  the  freight  was  being 
stored.  A  man  who  lives  in  this  part  of  the  world,  and 
is  familiar  with  it,  says  that  when  the  natives  are  talk- 
ing, they  are  at  work;  when  they  are  quiet,  he  stirs 
them  up  with  a  stick,  for  he  knows  they  are  loafing. 
The  loading  on  the  forward  deck  was  not  ten  feet  from 
my  cabin,  and  the  quartermaster  assured  me  it  would 
go  on  all  night.  At  10 :  30  there  was  a  short  rest,  and 
the  native  workers  swarmed  up  from  below,  and  over 
from  the  barges,  to  be  fed.  The  crew  cook  gave  them 
pans  of  either  rice  or  corn-meal  mush,  I  could  not  tell 
which,  and  the  men  sat  around  in  groups,  and  ate  it 
with  their  fingers.  The  deck  passengers,  who  have 
comfortable  quarters  over  the  hatchway  when  we  are 
at  sea,  scatter  everywhere  when  the  hatches  are  un- 
covered, and  loading  is  in  progress.  ...  I  was 
much  interested  in  a  negro  man  who  had  two  wives. 
The  women  had  little  babies  of  about  the  same  age, 
and  the  husband  seemed  as  fond  of  one  wife  as  of  the 
other.  The  husband  was  a  young  man,  perhaps  twen- 
ty-five, and  his  wives  were  still  younger.  The  black 
babies  were  much  better  behaved  than  the  white  ones 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          397 

in  the  first  cabin.  Since  the  arrival  of  the  five  white 
babies,  the  "Burgermeister"  has  been  turned  into  a 
nursery.  Some  mothers  are  disposed  to  be  apologetic 
when  their  children  annoy  others,  but  the  mothers  on 
the  "Burgermeister"  look  at  the  other  passengers  as 
though  they  are  a  mean  lot  for  not  assisting  in  taking 
care  of  the  babies.  When  a  baby  cries  in  my  presence, 
I  somehow  feel  as  though  I  made  it  cry.  I  learned  the 
various  processes  of  caring  for  babies  in  bringing  up 
my  own,  but  had  I  not  learned  the  art  long  ago,  I 
might  learn  it  all  on  board  the  "Burgermeister,"  from 
intimate  association  with  it.  All  the  babies  are  Ger- 
man, except  one  Portuguese.  ...  I  was  more  in- 
terested in  Mombasa  than  in  Zanzibar.  It  is  larger, 
and  has  better  public  buildings  of  every  kind.  The 
general  impression  is  that  Mombasa  has  a  bright  future, 
while  Zanzibar  seems  to  be  as  large  as  it  can  ever  hope 
to  be.  .  .  .  The  known  history  of  Mombasa  be- 
gan a  thousand  years  ago,  but  many  say  this  section 
was  settled,  and  was  the  scene  of  fierce  wars,  long  be- 
fore the  Christian  era.  It  has  been  Portuguese  terri- 
tory and  Arab  territory,  and  they  quarreled  and  fought 
over  it  constantly  until  the  British  took  possession, 
and  told  both  contending  factions  to  behave  them- 
selves. If  the  old  forts  in  Mombasa  could  talk,  they 
might  tell  tales  of  bloodshed  and  cruelty  that  would 
startle  modern  mankind.  .  .  .  Mombasa  is  the 
port  of  entry  for  the  vast  territory  of  Uganda,  a  name 
which  calls  up  memories  of  Livingstone,  Speke,  Grant, 
and  Stanley.  The  railroad  beginning  here  runs  to 
Victoria  Lake.  It  was  this  railroad  on  which  Roose- 
velt made  his  trip  into  the  interior,  riding  on  the  cow- 


TRAVEL  LETTERS   FROM 

catcher  much  of  the  way,  and  being  in  constant  sight 
of  big  game.  I  have  seen  no  wild  game  except  one 
pheasant,  and  a  good  many  baboons,  but  it  is  all 
around  us,  a  few  miles  in  the  interior.  .  .  .  Imag- 
inative writers  draw  beautiful  word-pictures  of  this 
country  and  its  future,  but  the  facts  are  that  it  is  a 
country  beset  with  many  pests  and  difficulties.  I  have 
talked  with  men  from  many  sections  of  it,  but  they  do 
not  tell  stories  of  wonderful  prosperity.  On  the  con- 
trary, they  tell  stories  of  hot  weather,  of  natural  dif- 
ficulties to  be  overcome,  and  of  hard  pioneering.  Who- 
ever lives  here  must  not  expect  health;  he  must  "go 
home"  as  frequently  as  possible,  to  recuperate,  as  do 
our  soldiers  in  the  Philippines.  There  are  as  many 
undeveloped  "natural  resources"  in  the  Philippine 
Islands  as  in  Africa;  the  greatest  difference  is  that 
the  African  natives  are  better  workers  than  the  Fili- 
pinos, and  not  so  much  attention  is  paid  to  their  liber- 
ties as  we  are  paying  to  the  liberties  of  the  Filipinos. 
.  .  .  This  section  is  known  locally  as  "British 
East."  Some  say  British  East  Africa  is  a  better  coun- 
try than  Cape  Colony  or  Natal,  or  the  Transvaal,  or 
the  Orange  Free  State,  but  the  general  evidence  is  that 
it  is  not.  .  .  .  The  "  Burgermeister "  has  a  won- 
derful cargo  hi  its  hold.  This  morning  I  saw  a  lot  of 
ivory  come  on  board,  and  asked  an  official  what  else 
we  carried  to  the  markets  of  the  world.  We  have  rub- 
ber, cloves,  Colombo  roots,  ginelda  wood  for  tanning, 
crome  ore,  a  great  lot  of  copper  ore,  gum  copal,  copra, 
cocoanut  fiber,  carianda  seeds,  great  quantities  of  bul- 
lock and  goat  hides,  ostrich  feathers,  wool,  raw  cotton, 
coffee,  tobacco,  cotton  seed,  cotton-seed  oil  in  barrels, 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          399 

etc.  A  great  deal  more  freight  was  offered  than  the 
ship  could  accommodate,  and  much  was  left  in  the 
barges  after  the  "  Burgermeister's  "  hold  was  full.  This 
freight  comes  from  the  interior,  and  was  brought  to 
the  coast  by  rail,  by  river,  and  by  bullock  team ;  it 
does  not  represent  the  product  of  a  section,  but  of  a 
continent.  .  .  .  We  were  told  on  coming  on  board 
last  night  that  an  American  and  his  wife  had  been 
added  to  the  passenger  list  during  our  absence.  I 
looked  the  man  over,  and  at  once  offered  to  bet  two 
to  one  that  he  was  not  an  American.  He  wore  a  green 
hat,  with  the  brim  turned  down  all  the  way  'round. 
No  American  ever  wore  a  green  hat,  or  wore  it  with 
the  brim  turned  down  in  that  fashion.  Besides,  he 
smokes  a  pipe  all  the  time,  and  carries  a  bag  of  tobacco 
attached  to  his  belt ;  an  English  custom.  .  .  .  We 
lost  nearly  all  of  our  friends  at  Mombasa.  Many  of 
the  passengers  are  new,  and  we  must  start  all  over  in 
becoming  acquainted.  Nine  out  of  ten  are  Germans ; 
there  is  an  English  line  of  boats  plying  on  the  East 
Coast,  and  the  English  prefer  their  own  ships.  Who- 
ever travels  out  here  will  notice  friction  between  the 
English  and  Germans.  ...  In  spite  of  every  cabin 
on  the  ship  being  full,  and  in  spite  of  the  long  delays 
in  loading  freight,  the  chief  steward  feeds  us  well ;  it 
is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  food  is  as  good  as  may 
be  had  on  the  best  ships  of  the  fine  Atlantic  fleet. 
While  in  port,  we  have  so  many  visitors  that  we  are 
crowded,  but  at  sea,  we  settle  down,  and  do  very  well. 
.  .  .  There  are  several  cases  of  the  plague  at  Mom- 
basa, but  not  much  attention  is  paid  to  them.  The 
plague  is  always  a  pest  here,  and  occasionally  it  gets 


400  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

a  big  start ;  not  long  ago,  Zanzibar  was  a  closed  port 
for  six  months,  and  visitors  were  compelled  to  remain 
there  until  the  quarantine  was  raised.  The  Zanzibar 
hotel  is  a  very  bad  one,  and  a  good  many  of  the  vis- 
itors hired  houses  and  cooks,  and  lived  very  comforta- 
bly. .  .  .  Nearly  all  the  natives  of  Mombasa  are 
Mohammedans,  and  when  we  passed  through  the  town 
just  after  darkness  set  in,  it  seems  to  me  I  saw  thou- 
sands of  men  praying  in  the  mosques.  I  have  never 
seen  a  Mohammedan  woman  praying ;  with  people  of 
that  faith,  it  seems  to  be  the  men  who  are  religious. 
Among  Protestants,  you  will  find  ten  religious  women 
to  one  religious  man.  .  .  .  The  old  fort  at  Mom- 
basa was  once  besieged  thirty-three  months,  and  when 
the  garrison  finally  surrendered  the  victors  found  only 
eleven  men  and  three  women  to  butcher.  .  .  .  The 
Uganda  State  Railway  begins  at  Mombasa,  and  runs 
to  Lake  Victoria,  source  of  the  river  Nile.  On  the 
way  is  Niarobi,  probably  the  most  promising  town  in 
British  East  Africa.  It  was  to  Niarobi  Sammy  Marks 
was  going,  to  open  a  new  theatre.  Nearly  all  the  way 
to  the  lake,  big  game  is  constantly  in  sight  from  the 
railway  carriages.  Lake  Victoria  is  the  second  largest 
in  the  world,  only  Lake  Superior  being  larger.  A  trip 
of  five  days  is  provided  on  Victoria  Lake,  in  large  and 
comfortable  ships,  which  are  occasionally  out  of  sight 
of  land.  It  is  in  this  section  where  ten  thousand  na- 
tives died  within  a  year  from  the  terrible  sleeping  sick- 
ness, which  is  so  fatal  that  the  government  is  now 
forcing  the  blacks  to  leave  the  infected  district.  .  .  . 
On  the  railroad  to  Victoria  Lake  is  Tsavo  station,  where 
a  pair  of  man-eating  lions  devoured  thirty-three  natives 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          401 

during  the  construction  work.  Colonel  Patterson 
wrote  a  book  about  "The  Man  Eaters  of  Tsavo,"  and 
its  fame  is  worldwide.  The  terror  of  the  native 
workmen  on  the  railway  finally  became  so  great  that 
work  was  suspended  for  a  time.  Then  one  of  the  en- 
gineers fixed  up  an  iron  cage,  and  spent  five  nights  hi 
it.  The  second  night  he  shot  one  of  the  lions,  another 
the  third  night,  and  the  last  one  the  fifth  night.  A 
good  many  hunters  in  Africa  laugh  at  the  Tsavo  story 
as  greatly  exaggerated ;  indeed,  I  have  heard  it  openly 
stated  here  that  the  Lion  Lie  is  one  of  the  greatest 
jokes  in  Africa.  Every  hunter,  the  African  people  say, 
takes  home  a  fierce  lion  lie,  and  the  world  has  come  to 
believe  thousands  of  big  stories  about  these  animals 
that  are  ridiculous. 


WEDNESDAY,  APRIL  16. — At  noon  today  we  left 
Mombasa  for  Aden;  no  more  stops  for  five  or  six 
days.  Loading  at  Mombasa  continued  without  in- 
terruption for  eighteen  hours,  and  when  the  colored 
laborers  went  away  on  barges,  they  cheered  because 
of  the  completion  of  their  long  task.  .  .  .  Outside 
the  harbor,  we  encountered  the  first  motion  of  the  voy- 
age, and  several  of  the  passengers  went  to  bed.  The 
motion  was  not  great,  but  it  was  the  first  we  have  had. 
We  had  been  wondering  what  the  "Burgermeister" 
would  do  in  case  of  heavy  weather,  and  found  her 
specialty  is  a  pitch.  The  pitch  is  far  more  agreeable 
than  the  roll.  .  .  .  We  had  been  told  by  the  cap- 
tain to  expect  the  hottest  weather  of  the  voyage  be- 


402  TRAVEL  LETTERS   FROM 

tween  Mombasa  and  Aden,  but  found  the  weather 
cooler  at  Mombasa  than  at  any  other  stopping-place, 
and  at  sea  there  were  actually  spots  on  deck  that  were 
too  cool.  ...  At  Mombasa  we  took  on  an  en- 
tirely new  lot  of  deck  passengers,  and  lost  a  number 
who  greatly  interested  me.  One  was  a  negro  boy  of 
fourteen,  whom  a  woman  passenger  was  taking  to 
Niarobi  as  a  servant.  She  met  him  on  the  streets  of 
Mozambique,  and,  being  attracted  by  his  fair  promises, 
took  him  on  board.  The  boy  claimed  to  be  able  to 
speak  five  languages  in  addition  to  "Kitchen  Kaffir." 
This  is  a  language  which  all  Kaffirs  understand,  and  it 
is  the  native  language  usually  learned  by  whites.  I 
have  a  notion  that  a  half-savage  boy  of  fourteen  speak- 
ing five  languages,  speaks  some  of  them  very  im- 
perfectly. .  .  .  The  captain,  or  some  one  for  him, 
has  suppressed  the  six  babies  on  board.  Nearly  all 
of  them  have  male  nurses,  and  these  negro  men,  who 
are  traveling  on  deck-passage  tickets,  almost  monop- 
olized the  first-cabin  deck.  They  had  cribs  and  fences 
in  which  they  confined  their  charges,  and  getting  about 
was  almost  impossible.  There  was  so  much  grumbling 
that  the  babies  and  nurses  have  been  sent  to  the  deck 
below,  and  we  see  no  more  of  them,  although  we  can 
hear  them.  The  halls  of  the  baby  deck  are  encumbered 
with  all  sorts  of  nursing-bottles  and  other  apparatus 
of  that  nature,  and  we  are  compelled  to  wade  through 
it  when  we  go  to  our  rooms.  .  .  .  The  lower  class 
of  Hindus  are  the  filthiest  people  in  the  world,  judging 
from  what  I  see  of  them  on  the  lower  deck,  where  a 
good  many  of  them  are  located  as  passengers.  I  can- 
not avoid  seeing  all  their  domestic  arrangements,  and 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          403 

their  indifference  to  dirt  is  amazing.  I  notice  that  a 
good  many  of  the  negroes  in  Africa  have  adopted  the 
Hindu  religion,  having  learned  it  from  the  Indians,  who 
come  to  the  East  Coast  in  great  swarms.  Religion 
naturally  appeals  to  the  negro,  and  he  adopts  any  form 
of  it  which  attracts  his  fancy.  But  the  great  bulk  of 
the  negroes  on  the  East  Coast  are  Mohammedans,  hav- 
ing learned  that  doctrine  from  the  Arabs  who  sold  them 
into  slavery.  You  would  think  the  negroes  would  de- 
test the  Mohammedan  religion  and  the  Arabs,  but  they 
do  not.  Many  of  the  natives  who  are  unmistakably 
Africans,  claim  to  be  Arabs,  and  this  evening  I  saw  six 
Mohammedan  negroes  saying  their  prayers  at  the  same 
time.  They  observed  me  watching  them,  and  took 
particular  pains  to  "show  off."  One  of  them  had  a 
string  of  beads  of  the  kind  used  by  the  Catholics,  and 
I  am  certain  that  he  had  picked  up  this  addition  to  his 
Mohammedan  religion  from  the  Catholics.  All  re- 
ligions become  badly  mixed  by  their  different  forms 
appealing  to  other  sects.  .  .  .  The  orchestra  played 
a  concert  on  deck  this  evening,  for  the  first  time  in 
several  days ;  we  have  been  so  busy  loading  cargo  that 
there  was  no  time  to  think  of  music.  ...  I  find  that 
we  took  on  an  American  passenger  at  Mombasa; 
A.  B.  Hepburn,  of  the  Chase  National  Bank,  of  New 
York,  and  Comptroller  of  Currency  under  President 
Harrison.  He  has  been  hunting  in  the  Niarobi  sec- 
tion, and  told  me  he  was  the  only  one  in  his  outfit  who 
did  not  get  the  fever. 


404  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

THURSDAY,  APRIL  17. — We  crossed  the  equator  at 
noon  today,  and  are  once  more  in  our  proper  hemi- 
sphere. There  were  no  exercises ;  usually  the  sailors 
engage  in  foolishness,  and  scare  those  who  have  not 
crossed  before,  by  threatening  to  duck  them  in  the 
swimming-tank.  There  is  not  a  great  deal  of  foolish- 
ness on  German  ships ;  on  the  English  ships,  so  much 
is  made  of  sports  that  many  passengers  seriously  ob- 
ject. I  selected  a  German  ship  instead  of  an  English 
because  I  was  thoroughly  disgusted  with  the  Sports 
Committee  on  the  "Anchises."  Every  hour  of  the 
day,  almost,  on  the  "Anchises,"  a  boy  went  about 
beating  a  gong,  to  announce  another  meeting  of  the 
Sports  Committee,  which  arranged  for  potato  races, 
sack  races,  and  other  silly  performances.  Nothing  of 
that  kind  on  the  "  Burgermeister ; "  the  passengers  are 
genteel  and  quiet,  and  let  each  other  alone.  .  .  . 
The  English  universally  speak  of  the  tomato  as  "to- 
mahto."  If  that  pronunciation  is  correct,  why  do  they 
speak  of  the  potato  as  "potayto?"  If  "tomahto" 
is  a  correct  pronunciation,  "potahto"  is  also  better 
than  "potayto."  ...  I  notice  that  nearly  everyone 
speaks  a  little  English.  We  have  on  board  Germans, 
Russians,  Portuguese,  Chinese,  Belgians,  French,  Arabs, 
Hindus,  and  Kaffirs,  and  all  of  them  speak  English, 
more  or  less.  English  will  soon  become  the  universal 
language ;  there  is  no  need  of  Esperanto,  a  language  I 
have  never  heard  of  anyone  speaking.  A  band  of  re- 
formers are  urging  that  all  races  learn  Esperanto,  in 
order  that  all  men  may  have  a  common  language,  but 
Esperanto  is  not  making  much  progress.  .  .  .  Owing 
to  the  crowd  in  the  dining-room,  my  bath-room  stew- 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          405 

ard  assists  in  waiting  at  my  table.  He  is  a  very  capa- 
ble and  agreeable  man;  every  morning  when  I  go  to 
the  bath-room,  he  says:  "Good  morning,  please." 
.  .  .  I  believe  that  every  woman  on  board,  with  one 
notable  exception  from  Kansas,  smokes  cigarettes. 
Young  women  walk  about  the  decks  alone,  smoking, 
and  it  always  seems  to  me  to  be  foolish.  The  fact  that 
Adelaide  does  not  smoke,  causes  a  good  deal  of  favor- 
able comment  among  the  men.  "I  may  be  old-fash- 
ioned," I  have  heard  many  men  say,  "but  I  don't  like 
to  see  women  smoke."  .  .  .  We  have  heard  no 
American  news  for  weeks,  except  that  J.  Pierpont  Mor- 
gan's body  has  arrived  in  New  York.  I  see  this  an- 
nouncement in  every  newspaper  I  pick  up;  when  a 
cablegram  is  received  here,  the  newspapers  warm  it 
over  for  days.  ...  In  the  cablegram  announcing 
Morgan's  death,  the  impression  was  given  that  he  had 
a  bad  stomach,  and  starved  to  death.  The  passengers 
talk  a  good  deal  about  this  very  rich  man  starving  to 
death.  .  .  .  An  Englishman  whom  I  know  very 
well,  and  who  talks  Kaffir,  takes  a  good  deal  of  inter- 
est in  the  negro  passenger  who  has  two  wives.  Today 
we  went  down  to  the  lower  deck,  and  discussed  matri- 
mony with  the  man.  Asked  if  the  system  of  plural 
marriages  pleased  him,  he  replied  that  if  he  had  it 
to  do  over,  he  wouldn't  marry  at  all.  It  seems  that 
all  the  Kaffirs  who  are  deck  passengers  try  to  flirt  with 
the  man's  two  wives,  and  he  is  very  uncomfortable. 
He  says  he  showed  his  respect  for  women  in  a  practical 
way,  by  marrying  two  of  them;  that  he  pays  their 
fare  on  the  present  journey,  but  that  a  lot  of  young 
fellows  expect  his  wives  to  neglect  him  in  order  that 


406  l-RAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

they  may  amuse  them.  There  is  a  good  deal  of  the 
same  thing  in  the  first  cabin,  and  several  wives  make 
their  husbands  very  uncomfortable  by  flirting  with 
the  young  men.  .  .  .  The  barber  on  this  ship 
charges  only  twelve  cents  for  a  shave ;  the  price  on  all 
other  ships  I  know  anything  about  is  double  that 
amount.  .  .  .  The  Germans  and  English  have 
talked  of  fighting  so  long  that  I  almost  hope  they  will 
finally  be  punished  by  getting  at  it.  War  is  so  un- 
necessary, atrocious  and  wicked  that  every  nation  that 
even  talks  about  it  should  be  punished.  .  .  .  This 
morning  we  passed  an  Arab  dhow.  It  was  not  more 
than  sixty  feet  long,  yet  vessels  of  this  type  have  been 
sailing  these  seas  for  centuries.  They  have  but  one 
sail,  and  a  crew  of  only  four  or  five  men,  but  they  are 
often  entrusted  with  valuable  cargoes.  They  are 
stoutly  but  crudely  built,  and  the  one  deck  is  covered 
with  straw  thatch.  The  captain  of  an  Arab  dhow 
has  no  scientific  knowledge  of  navigation,  and  no  in- 
struments to  take  the  sun,  yet  he  knows  the  currents 
and  the  stars,  and  makes  as  good  time  as  modern  sail- 
ing-ships. Captain  Ulrich  looked  at  the  dhow  through 
his  glass  this  morning,  and  said  the  captain  was  taking 
every  advantage  of  wind  and  current,  and  that  the 
most  able  navigator  could  not  do  better.  Ships  of 
exactly  this  type  were  used  thousands  of  years  ago, 
and  some  I  have  seen  along  this  coast  looked  to  be 
fully  that  old.  An  Arab  dhow  has  no  conveniences 
whatever,  yet  they  carry  passengers  as  well  as  freight. 
Passengers  and  crew  live  together  under  the  single 
roof  of  thatch,  and  cook  and  live  in  the  most  primitive 
manner.  If  the  Arabs  are  not  the  dirtiest  people  in 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          407 

the  world,  only  the  lower  order  of  Hindus  can  wrest 
that  distinction  from  them.  .  .  .  Many  of  the  pas- 
sengers who  came  on  board  at  German  East  Africa 
ports,  are  half  sick,  and  say  they  have  had  enough 
of  the  African  climate.  I  hear  no  praise  of  rural  Africa 
from  those  who  have  lived  there ;  there  are  prosperous 
and  healthy  people  around  Capetown  and  Durban,  and 
in  the  Transvaal  and  Orange  Free  State,  but  the  in- 
terior of  the  country  is  grievously  afflicted  with  dry 
weather  and  serious  physical  pests. 


FRIDAY,  APRIL  18. — We  have  not  been  in  sight  of 
land  for  several  days,  but  the  sea  remains  calm,  and 
the  weather  cool;  nothing  going  on  except  the  band 
concert  at  10 : 30  A.  M.,  and  the  orchestra  concert  at 
9  P.  M.  After  the  last-named  event,  we  walk  around 
awhile,  and  then  go  to  bed.  .  .  .  There  are  two 
amateurs  on  board  who  are  returning  from  a  hunting 
trip,  and  on  the  aft  deck  they  have  a  number  of  trophies. 
A  majority  of  the  male  passengers  live  in  Africa,  and 
have  hunted  a  great  deal,  so  the  two  amateurs  do  not 
attract  much  attention.  Leopards  are  the  great  pest 
of  the  country,  as  they  are  very  numerous.  One  man 
told  me  this  morning  that  only  a  few  weeks  ago,  a 
leopard  killed  a  negro  boy  in  his  hunting  camp.  No 
hunting  story  is  more  than  half  true,  so  I  do  not  pay 
much  attention  to  them.  A  hunter  offered  me  a  pair 
of  buffalo  horns  today,  but  I  refused  the  offer;  they 
were  not  worth  the  trouble  of  carrying  them  home. 
.  .  .  Captain  Ulrich,  of  the  "Burgermeister,"  does 


408  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

not  sit  at  the  head  of  the  centre  table  in  the  dining- 
room,  but  occupies  a  side  seat  at  a  side  table.  .  .  . 
Men  object  to  wearing  evening  clothes  because  of  the 
stiff  shirt.  Soft  shirts  with  pleated  fronts  are  generally 
worn  with  dress  suits  on  the  "Burgermeister,"  and  they 
are  said  to  be  the  latest  in  London.  A  coat  and  vest 
of  white  duck,  the  coat  as  short  as  a  waiter's  jacket, 
are  also  substituted  for  the  black  coat  and  vest.  .  .  . 
Every  little  while  I  meet  a  man  who  says  he  prefers 
second  class  to  first  class  on  a  ship,  because  of  the  lack 
of  formality  in  the  second  cabin.  At  Victoria  Falls  I 
became  acquainted  with  a  man,  and  saw  him  again 
today  on  the  second-cabin  deck.  He  says  the  in- 
formality there  is  so  pronounced  that  some  of  the  Eng- 
lishmen spend  half  the  morning  in  the  smoking-room 
wearing  nothing  but  pajamas.  That,  it  seems  to  me, 
is  carrying  informality  too  far.  When  a  man  travels 
in  the  second  cabin,  he  does  it  to  save  money,  and  not 
because  it  is  "more  democratic."  I  hate  democracy 
when  it  amounts  to  impoliteness  and  rudeness,  as  is 
frequently  the  case.  .  .  .  There  is  a  burly  Ger- 
man officer  on  board  in  whom  I  am  much  interested, 
because  of  the  scars  on  his  head  and  face.  The  scars 
were  evidently  received  in  a  student  duel  at  the  univer- 
sity, and  I  should  like  to  see  the  bully  boy  who  deco- 
rated him  so  artistically.  ...  I  hear  it  stated  every 
hour  of  the  day  that  Africa  is  a  country  of  "great 
promise."  It  seems  to  me  that  Africa  has  been  "prom- 
ising" long  enough,  and  should  cease  being  a  game 
country.  The  United  States  turned  the  buffalo  ranges 
into  farms;  Africa  would  also  get  rid  of  its  game  if 
there  were  any  demand  for  its  land  from  agriculturists. 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          409 

SATURDAY,  APRIL  19. — Today  we  are  off  Samoliland, 
the  most  worthless  part  of  Africa.  It  is  controlled  by 
the  Italians,  and  is  about  as  savage  as  it  ever  was. 
There  is  one  seaport  in  Samoliland,  but  steamers  rarely 
touch  there,  as  it  has  no  business.  .  .  .  The  weather, 
which  we  expected  to  be  very  hot  in  this  part  of  the 
world,  remains  cool.  You  often  miss  it  when  you  ex- 
pect misfortune.  .  .  .  There  is  a  young  Canadian 
on  board  named  Goult.  It  was  at  first  reported  that 
he  was  an  American,  and  he  does  look  like  one,  as  all 
Canadians  do.  He  and  his  wife  have  been  on  a  hunt- 
ing trip  into  the  interior  of  Africa.  They  had  an  out- 
fit consisting  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  native  men, 
who  packed  their  supplies  and  tents.  The  natives  car- 
ried their  own  food,  which  consisted  of  several  thousand 
pounds  of  corn-meal;  in  addition  to  this,  they  had 
meat  when  game  was  killed.  The  hunt  lasted  nearly 
four  months,  and  very  few  of  the  men  deserted.  When 
a  native  porter  deserts,  he  loses  all  pay  coming  to  him ; 
besides,  he  is  liable  to  arrest  and  imprisonment.  Mr. 
Goult  had  a  professional  guide  and  hunter  with  him, 
who  organized  and  managed  his  outfit.  They  killed 
four  lions,  but  no  elephants,  although  other  game  was 
fairly  plentiful.  Mr.  Goult  says  game  animals  in  this 
section  are  infested  with  a  tick  which  renders  them 
disgusting  at  times.  Mrs.  Goult  told  me  this  evening 
that  she  suffered  no  hardship;  that  roughing  it  in 
Canada  is  very  much  rougher.  .  .  .  The  band  on 
the  "Burgermeister"  is  a  very  good  one ;  much  better 
than  is  usually  found  on  ships,  and  the  leader  has  ex- 
cellent taste  in  choosing  his  selections.  And  this  man  is 
a  waiter  in  the  dining-room,  and  young  and  good-look- 


410  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

ing.  .  .  .  The  "Burgermeister"  is  a  slow  ship, 
and  makes  about  fifteen  miles  an  hour:  only  half  as 
much  as  some  of  the  big  liners  on  the  Atlantic.  The 
Atlantic  is  the  dandy  of  oceans :  no  other  has  equally 
fine  ships.  But  on  the  fast  ships  of  the  Atlantic  there 
is  a  vibration  from  the  engines  that  is  disagreeable. 
The  slow  ships  are  much  more  comfortable  than  the 
fast  ones.  And  the  Atlantic  is  also  the  bully  of  oceans ; 
a  voyage  without  rough  weather  is  rare.  If  the  At- 
lantic were  as  smooth  as  the  Indian  ocean  from  Beira 
to  Aden,  people  would  hear  less  of  seasickness.  .  .  . 
The  captain  is  taking  home  with  him  a  baby  deer  that 
certainly  does  not  weigh  a  pound  and  a  half.  It  is 
not  as  big  as  a  rabbit,  as  it  belongs  to  a  family  of  deer 
noted  for  diminutive  size.  The  captain  amused  the 
passengers  this  evening  by  feeding  his  baby  with  a 
bottle.  First  the  captain  smelt  of  the  bottle,  to  see 
that  the  milk  was  not  sour.  The  baby  has  been  ill, 
and  the  ship  doctor  has  been  attending  to  it.  ... 
By-the-way,  the  doctor  has  been  behaving  very  well 
since  his  sweetheart  left  the  boat  at  Tanga.  The 
women  expected  him  to  be  gay,  but  he  has  been  very 
quiet  and  thoughtful,  and  the  men  are  proud  of  him. 
.  .  .  There  is  nothing  lazier  or  duller  than  a  voyage 
in  quiet  seas.  At  one  time  this  afternoon,  every  pas- 
senger on  my  side  of  the  deck  was  asleep. 


SUNDAY,  APRIL  20. — We  were  awakened  this  morn- 
ing by  the  ship's  band  playing  hymns  in  the  halls. 
Soon  after  I  went  on  deck,  land  appeared,  the  first 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          411 

we  have  seen  in  four  days,  and  we  remained  in  sight 
of  it  all  day.  Between  us  and  land  a  ship  was  steam- 
ing southward,  and  a  school  of  porpoises  also  appeared, 
disturbing  the  sea  for  miles.  They  were  as  lazy  as 
the  natives,  and  jumped  in  a  leisurely,  slow  way  that 
amused  us.  About  noon,  Cape  Guardafui  appeared. 
Guardafui  is  the  most  eastern  extremity  of  the  African 
continent,  and  when  we  rounded  it  about  noon,  we  were 
in  the  Arabian  sea,  and  the  ship's  prow  was  pointing 
toward  home:  due  west.  The  rocky  point  around 
which  we  turned  to  enter  the  Arabian  Sea,  bears  a 
striking  resemblance  to  a  huge  crouching  lion,  when 
viewed  from  a  distance.  We  passed  quite  near  the 
shore,  but  saw  no  signs  of  life :  nothing  but  a  desolate 
waste  of  sand  and  rock.  .  .  .  After  rounding 
Guardafui,  we  were  in  the  Gulf  of  Aden,  which  looks 
small  on  the  map,  but  we  shall  steam  on  its  surface 
thirty  hours,  out  of  sight  of  land,  before  reaching  Aden 
and  the  entrance  to  the  Red  Sea.  We  are  now  in  that 
section  referred  to  by  Kipling  as  "East  of  Suez:" 
land  of  poor  crops,  poverty  and  misery.  A  few  days' 
sail  to  the  east  from  Guardafui,  and  the  traveler  reaches 
India,  where  ignorance  is  worshipped  as  mystery,  and 
where  men  of  the  tenth  or  hundredth  generation  know 
no  more  than  did  their  fathers.  .  .  .  Africa  is 
larger  than  North  America ;  it  is  almost  as  large  as  the 
American  continent,  and  is  controlled  by  such  enlight- 
ened natives  as  England,  Germany,  France,  Italy, 
Belgium  and  Portugal,  yet  from  one  end  of  the  country 
to  the  other  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  public  school 
for  the  natives.  Indeed,  I  have  heard  many  English- 
men openly  declare  that  education  is  the  ruination  of 


412  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

the  native.  I  don't  dispute  the  statement;  I  only 
call  attention  to  two  different  ideas  of  the  importance 
of  education.  In  the  Philippine  Islands,  in  Guam, 
in  Porto  Rico,  in  Honolulu,  in  Cuba,  we  are  insisting 
upon  education  as  the  solution  of  the  native  problem ; 
over  here,  the  powers  insist  that  education  only  makes 
the  native  problem  worse.  At  home,  we  are  called 
upon  to  contribute  money  with  which  to  send  mission- 
aries to  the  heathen.  Over  here,  where  the  heathen 
lives,  the  whites  almost  universally  say  that  the  mis- 
sionary causes  useless  trouble.  I  am  not  trying  to 
settle  the  question,  or  argue  it :  I  am  merely  calling 
attention  to  a  queer  phase  of  it.  .  .  .  A  gentleman 
told  me  today  that  in  Portuguese  East  Africa,  where  he 
lives,  there  is  a  Catholic  mission  in  charge  of  French 
priests.  In  the  chapel,  there  are  huge  oil  paintings 
showing  pictures  of  hell.  The  devil  is  represented  as 
a  negro.  In  one  picture,  a  native  is  dying,  and  hun- 
dreds of  fiends  surround  his  bed,  waiting  until  life  is 
extinct,  that  they  may  torture  him.  There  is  educa- 
tion of  this  sort  in  Africa,  but  no  school-house  for  the 
natives.  .  .  .  Religious  services  were  held  in  the 
dining-room  at  five  o'clock  this  afternoon,  conducted 
by  a  German.  The  full  band  was  used  instead  of  an 
organ ;  the  preacher  would  line  a  hymn,  and  then  those 
present  would  sing  it,  accompanied  by  the  band.  .  .  . 
The  ship's  library  contains  books  printed  in  German, 
English,  French,  Portuguese,  and  Dutch,  which  will 
give  you  an  idea  of  the  different  nationalities  patron- 
izing this  line. 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.  413 

MONDAY,  APRIL  21. — At  9  o'clock  this  evening  we 
came  to  Aden,  in  Arabia,  said  to  be  the  hottest  town 
in  the  world.  Every  drop  of  water  used  there  is  con- 
densed from  the  sea,  although  there  is  a  white  popu- 
lation of  two  thousand,  including  English  soldiers,  and 
an  Arab  population  of  forty  thousand.  There  is  a 
tradition  that  rain  fell  at  Aden  three  years  ago,  and  that 
every  roof  in  town  leaked,  but  previous  to  that  time 
no  rain  had  fallen  in  the  town  or  its  vicinity  for  many 
years;  many  of  its  elderly  citizens  had  never  seen  a 
rain-storm,  and  looked  with  wonder  upon  the  one  which 
fell  three  years  ago.  Aden  is  located  on  a  rock  seven- 
teen hundred  feet  high,  and  this  rock  may  be  seen  far 
out  at  sea.  The  town  is  an  important  coaling  station, 
and  the  English  have  tremendous  fortifications — almost 
equal  to  Gibraltar — in  the  rocks.  The  harbor  is  a  large 
one,  and  almost  land-locked,  and  we  thought  the  place 
a  very  pretty  one,  by  moonlight.  Although  Aden  has 
such  a  bad  reputation  for  hot  weather,  the  evening  was 
delightfully  cool.  We  were  not  permitted  to  land, 
owing  to  the  plague,  but  our  ship  was  promptly  sur- 
rounded by  Arabs  in  boats,  who  bartered  with  the  pas- 
sengers until  after  midnight.  The  Arabs  had  ostrich 
feathers,  cigarettes,  post-cards,  and  dozens  of  other 
articles  to  sell,  and  these  they  sent  up  the  ship's  side 
in  baskets,  for  the  inspection  of  the  passengers.  If 
the  passengers  were  interested  in  the  goods  offered,  they 
asked  the  price,  said  it  was  too  much,  and  offered  half  ; 
then  the  dealer  became  excited,  and  screamed  back 
that  he  wouldn't  take  it,  although  he  often  did.  There 
were  dozens  of  these  boats,  and  the  uproar  was  so  in- 
cessant that  sleep  was  impossible.  The  ostrich  feathers 


414  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

offered  were  poor,  and  those  who  bought,  even  at 
greatly  reduced  prices,  were  probably  worsted.  .  .  . 
The  old  town  of  Aden  dates  back  to  the  days  of  Tyre 
and  Sidon,  and  was  a  celebrated  commercial  centre  long 
before  our  Christian  era;  for  many  centuries  it  has 
been  a  fortified  town  because  of  its  strategetical  posi- 
tion. From  the  eleventh  to  the  thirteenth  centuries 
it  did  an  enormous  trade  with  China,  India  and  Egypt, 
and  its  market  was  the  clearing-house  of  that  day  for 
the  treasures  of  the  East.  For  tens  of  centuries,  Aden 
has  been  the  cockpit  of  fierce  fights  for  ascendency 
amongst  the  Arabs,  Abyssinians,  Persians,  Turks,  and 
Egyptians.  ...  A  gentleman  who  lives  at  Aden 
says  he  pays  $20  a  month  for  water,  which  is  delivered 
at  his  door  in  tank-wagons  drawn  by  camels.  Some 
of  the  numerous  shops  in  Aden  sell  nothing  but  con- 
densed and  bottled  water,  and  the  price  in  quantity 
is  usually  a  dollar  per  hundred  gallons.  .  .  .  Many 
years  ago,  great  tanks  were  built  at  Aden,  to  catch 
the  precious  rainfall,  but  these  have  not  been  in  use 
for  many  years,  although  tourists  usually  visit  them. 
.  .  .  Aden  is  a  great  camel  market,  and  much  of 
the  famous  Mocha  coffee  is  shipped  from  this  point. 
There  is  just  one  industry  in  the  town :  the  manufac- 
ture of  cigarettes,  which  is  in  the  hands  of  Greeks,  and 
who  bring  their  tobacco  duty-free  from  Turkey  and 
Egypt.  The  walls  of  the  houses  are  built  of  a  cheap 
concrete,  and  plastered.  ...  A  third-class  pas- 
senger on  the  "Burgermeister"  is  a  little  German  girl, 
five  years  old,  traveling  alone.  She  was  brought  on 
board  at  Dar-es-Salaam,  to  be  taken  back  to  Germany. 
Her  mother  died  three  days  before,  and  her  father  was 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.  415 

somewhere  in  the  interior,  trying  to  make  a  fortune. 
The  little  girl's  mother  arrived  in  Dar-es-Salaam  only 
a  week  before  her  death.  Now  the  child  is  very  ill, 
and  it  is  not  believed  she  will  live  to  reach  her  friends 
in  Germany.  The  women  passengers  are  doing  all 
they  can  for  the  child,  but  she  cries  almost  constantly 
for  her  mother,  and  not  much  can  be  done1  for  her. 


TUESDAY,  APRIL  22. — This  morning  at  11  o'clock 
we  entered  the  Red  Sea,  through  the  Straits  of  Bab  el 
Mandeb.  The  straits  are  about  ten  miles  wide,  and 
are  made  narrower  at  the  entrance  to  the  Red  Sea  by 
Perim  Island,  which  the  English  have  fortified.  On 
our  right,  Asia;  on  the  left,  Africa, — two  continents 
in  sight.  The  Red  Sea  is  a  great  highway  for  ships 
since  the  completion  of  the  Suez  Canal ;  ships  for  India, 
China,  Japan,  Ceylon,  Australia  and  Africa  now  pass 
this  way.  From  7  o'clock  this  morning  until  3  P.  M. 
we  passed  fourteen  ships :  six  were  in  sight  at  one  time. 
Most  of  them  passed  us  so  closely  that  we  could  read 
their  names.  .  .  .  All  over  the  world,  you  hear 
how  terribly  hot  and  disagreeable  a  passage  through 
the  Red  Sea  is.  I  have  been  through  it  twice,  and  both 
voyages  were  cool  and  pleasant.  Ask  anyone  who  has 
been  through  the  Red  Sea,  and  he  will  tell  you  he  had 
a  pleasant  voyage,  but  those  who  have  not  made  the 
trip,  say  it  is  dreadful.  If  you  have  a  head  wind,  they 
say,  the  voyage  is  endurable,  but  if  you  have  a  follow- 
ing wind, — well,  passengers  can't  stand  it,  and  beg  the 
captain  to  run  the  other  way  for  a  time,  and  give  them 


416  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

some  relief.  We  have  a  following  wind  today, — that 
is,  the  smoke  from  our  funnels  is  ahead  of  us, — but  we 
find  the  weather  more  agreeable  than  it  was  at  Beira, 
or  other  points  on  the  east  coast  of  Africa.  .  .  . 
We  are  rarely  out  of  sight  of  land,  and  this  afternoon 
we  passed  the  Arabian  town  of  Mokka.  We  spell  it 
Mocha,  and  famous  coffee  comes  from  its  vicinity. 
Mocha  coffee  is  like  the  Blue  Point  oyster ;  it  is  very 
rare,  and  there  are  many  imitations.  The  town  of 
Mocha  has  no  harbor,  and  ships  rarely  call  there,  so 
the  little  coffee  it  produces  is  sent  to  Aden.  Further 
up  the  coast  is  the  town  of  Jiddah.  It  is  from  this 
place  that  pilgrims  start  for  Mecca,  sacred  city  of  the 
Mohammedans.  Only  one  white  man  has  ever  visited 
Mecca,  as  white  people  are  not  allowed  in  the  place. 
This  man,  an  English  officer  named  Burton,  disguised 
himself  as  an  Arab  physician.  He  spent  several  years 
in  familiarizing  himself  with  the  Mohammedan  religion 
and  the  Arab  language.  After  his  preparations  were 
complete,  he  shipped  as  a  deck  passenger  at  Suez  and 
successfully  deceived  the  dozens  of  real  Arabs  and  Mo- 
hammedans with  whom  he  was  intimately  associated. 
The  pilgrims  to  Mecca  from  Jiddah  are  cruelly  robbed 
by  the  Arabs  through  whose  country  they  must  pass, 
and  the  party  Burton  traveled  with  had  one  pitched 
battle  with  the  thieves.  Burton  wrote  a  book  telling 
of  his  experiences,  and  I  know  of  nothing  more  interest- 
ing in  the  way  of  adventure.  A  railroad  is  now  being 
built  to  Mecca,  if  it  has  not  been  actually  completed, 
and  Jiddah  will  lose  much  of  its  former  importance. 
War  and  slavery  are  common  in  most  of  the  Arab  towns 
along  the  Red  Sea,  and  it  is  dangerous  for  ships  to  send 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          417 

parties  ashore,  unless  heavily  armed.  During  the  hot, 
dry  season,  many  of  these  towns  are  entirely  deserted ; 
the  inhabitants  go  into  the  mountains,  and  remain 
there  until  the  weather  becomes  endurable.  The  Red 
Sea  has  a  shore-line  of  more  than  three  thousand  miles, 
yet  the  country  surrounding  it  is  so  worthless  that  there 
is  almost  no  town  of  importance  on  its  shores,  and  no 
river  runs  into  it.  There  is  no  rain  in  the  vicinity  of 
the  Red  Sea,  and  it  loses  eight  feet  every  year  from 
evaporation,  which  must  be  made  up  from  other  seas 
where  there  is  more  rain  and  less  heat.  .  .  .  You 
hear  a  great  deal  of  the  "Mysticism  of  the  East." 
This  mysticism  is  as  foolish  as  the  doggerel  used  by 
children  when  they  count  the  buttons  on  your  coat: 
"Rich  man,  poor  man,  beggar  man,  thief;  doctor 
lawyer,  merchant  chief,"  etc.  Mysticism  never  means 
anything.  The  West  solves  riddles,  and  discovers  how 
to  produce  a  hundred  bushels  of  corn  per  acre :  the 
East  pays  great  attention  to  Mysticism,  and  has  more 
poor,  dirty  and  ignorant  people  than  any  other  part  of 
the  world.  When  the  plague  breaks  out  in  the  East, 
as  a  result  of  foolish  pilgrimages  to  Mecca  or  Benares, 
the  pilgrims  say  the  plague  is  a  part  of  the  Mysticism 
of  the  East,  and  continue  to  drink  holy  and  dirty  water. 
But  the  men  of  the  West  have  a  better  doctrine :  its 
chief  tenet  is,  "Clean  Up,"  and  the  plague  disappears 
before  it.  ...  All  our  deck  passengers  left  us  at 
Aden»  Men  who  spend  half  their  time  saying  their 
prayers  do  not  flourish  in  the  great  world  west  of  Suez. 
.  .  .  The  passengers  spend  a  good  deal  of  their  time 
in  reading.  I  often  hear  them  talking  of  the  books 
they  are  reading.  "How  do  you  like  it?"  one  will  ask. 


418  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

"Oh,"  the  other  will  reply,  "it  serves  to  kill  time,  but 
is  rather  foolish."  What  queer  things  you  find  in 
books!  And  how  much  alike  many  of  the  famous  ones 
are.  "Adam  Bede,"  "  The  Manxman,"  and  "  The  Scar- 
let Letter,"  were  all  written  around  an  "idea"  that  is 
unnatural,  unclean  and  absurd. 


WEDNESDAY,  APRIL  23. — We  are  in  a  wider  part  of 
the  Red  Sea  today,  and  are  not  meeting  so  many  ships ; 
the  few  we  have  seen  have  been  far  away.  Yesterday 
we  were  in  a  part  of  the  sea  almost  as  narrow  as  a 
river,  and  we  could  not  avoid  meeting  all  passing  ves- 
sels. At  one  time  last  night  so  many  brilliantly  lighted 
ships  were  in  sight  that  we  were  reminded  of  a  night 
parade  of  electrical  features  at  a  celebration.  .  .  . 
We  have  had  a  strong  head-wind  all  day  which  trav- 
elers pray  for  in  the  Red  Sea,  and  toward  evening  the 
"Burgermeister"  acquired  considerable  motion.  .  .  . 
The  English  passengers  on  board  organized  a  Sports 
Committee  this  morning,  and  are  now  busily  engaged 
in  arranging  for  such  elevating  sports  as  "In  a  Pig's 
Eye,"  "Are  You  There?"  potato-races  for  women,  etc. 
The  traveling  Englishman  has  lately  gone  crazy  about 
ship  sports;  he  is  like  a  Methodist  who  believes  in 
sanctification  by  baptism :  he  will  talk  of  nothing  else, 
and  insists  on  arguing  the  question  with  you.  In 
England,  only  cheap  people  at  country  fairs  engage  in 
such  sports,  but  on  English  ships,  dukes  and  princes 
are  expected  to  take  part,  for  the  honor  of  Old  England. 
The  German  passengers  are  not  enlisting  for  the  sports, 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          419 

but  the  English  urge  them  to  take  part  to  the  point 
of  annoyance.  ...  I  have  heard  none  of  the  pas- 
sengers mention  the  fact  that  the  water  in  the  Red  Sea 
is  not  red ;  the  fact  that  the  water  in  the  Red  Sea  is 
blue,  now  seems  to  be  generally  known.  ...  A 
passenger  in  the  third  class  is  very  ill,  and  the  ship 
doctor,  and  a  German  military  doctor  who  volunteered 
his  services,  decided  that  the  man  has  malaria  of  the 
head.  Malaria  is  so  common  in  the  tropics  that  now 
they  have  it  in  the  head.  ...  A  peculiar  thing 
about  the  "Burgermeister"  is  that  several  of  the  gen- 
tlemen passengers  wear  white  socks.  Somewhere  on 
this  trip  I  met  a  man  who  was  irritable  because  his 
white  socks  attracted  attention.  He  should  be  on  the 
"Burgermeister,"  where  they  are  quite  common.  .  .  . 
I  heard  a  woman  make  a  remarkable  statement  last 
night.  She  said :  "I  have  been  traveling  four  months, 
and  have  not  seen  a  single  married  man  attempt  to 
flirt ;  all  the  flirting  I  have  seen  has  been  done  by  mar- 
ried women  with  young  men."  I  submit  the  statement 
as  unusual,  without  comment.  .  .  .  The  dance 
last  night  was  a  failure ;  the  orchestra  played  several 
numbers  which  did  not  attract  any  dancers  at  all,  and 
only  five  couples  danced  during  the  entire  evening. 
All  the  women  dancers  were  married,  and  their  hus- 
bands sat  around  and  frowned  at  the  young  fellows 
who  were  dancing  with  them.  There  is  nothing  in  the 
notion  that  husbands  want  their  wives  to  be  very  pop- 
ular with  other  men.  .  .  .  During  the  concert  this 
evening,  the  tall  negro  man  nurse  who  has  whiskers, 
appeared  with  a  bottle  of  milk,  and  submitted  it  to  the 
inspection  of  his  employer.  The  woman  smelt  and 


420  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

then  tasted  the  milk;  it  seemed  satisfactory,  for  she 
gave  it  back  to  the  tall  Kaffir,  and  he  disappeared, 
probably  to  feed  his  charge. 


THURSDAY,  APRIL  24. — I  awoke  early  this  morning 
because  of  a  strange  and  unusual  sensation.  I  feared  I 
might  be  catching  the  fever,  or  plague,  but  later  dis- 
covered I  was  cold.  A  chilly  head-wind  was  blowing, 
and  this  in  the  Red  Sea,  which  rumor  says  is  as  hot  as 
a  furnace!  The  passengers  went  about  wearing  over- 
coats all  day.  At  2 : 30  P.  M.  we  passed  out  of  the 
tropics.  .  .  .  For  two  days  we  have  been  in  that 
part  of  the  Red  Sea  which  is  two  hundred  miles 
wide,  and  have  not  seen  many  ships ;  but  tonight  we 
were  in  a  narrow  part,  and  four  ships  were  in  sight 
at  one  time.  All  of  them  were  small;  there  are 
many  ships  in  the  east,  but  no  very  big  ones.  If  one 
of  the  big  ships  of  the  Atlantic  should  appear  at  Bom- 
bay or  Colombo,  people  would  travel  hundreds  of  miles 
to  see  it.  ...  The  general  impression  in  America 
is  that  an  English  lord  is  an  effeminate  little  man  who 
only  knows  enough  to  carry  an  eyeglass  in  one  eye. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  some  of  them  seem  to  be  quite 
useful  and  manly.  Lord  Delamere  is  one  of  the  con- 
spicuous figures  in  the  development  of  British  East 
Africa,  and  has  done  much  for  that  country.  In  ad- 
dition, he  is  the  world's  greatest  lion-hunter.  Up  to 
1911,  he  had  killed  seventy  lions,  single-handed.  Of 
the  first  forty-nine  he  shot,  not  one  escaped.  No  other 
lion-hunter  has  a  record  half  as  good  as  Lord  Delamere. 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AtrSTSlALtA,  AND   AFRICA.          421 

Another  useful  man  in  Africa  is  Lord  Carnworth,  who 
is  an  extensive  farmer,  as  is  Lord  Delamere.  Both 
these  men  engage  in  expensive  agricultural  experiments 
for  the  general  good.  Lord  Carnworth  lately  wrote  a 
book  entitled,  "A  Colony  in  the  Making."  It  dis- 
plays a  wonderful  knowledge  of  British  East  Africa. 
Among  other  things,  he  says  the  American  hunters 
who  come  here  are  game  hogs,  and  places  Mr.  Roose- 
velt in  that  class.  He  also  speaks  jestingly  of  the 
dangers  of  hunting  in  Africa.  The  terrible  rhino,  which 
in  books  is  never  content  unless  he  has  a  hunter  im- 
paled on  his  single  terrible  horn,  is  not  thought  to  be 
dangerous  by  hunters  who  live  in  this  country.  .  .  . 
In  his  book,  Lord  Carnworth  discusses  the  native  labor 
question  quite  frankly.  He  says  what  practically  all 
the  whites  here  say :  that  the  missionaries  are  doing 
no  good — that  their  converts  are  worse  than  the  un- 
converted negroes.  I  quote  his  exact  language : 

"Inevitably  but  unfortunately  the  mission-educated 
native  does  not  bear  a  good  name,  either  among  his 
fellow  natives  or  among  Europeans.  It  is,  alas,  a  very 
generally  accepted  fact  that  one  should  beware  of  mis- 
sion servants,  who  almost  invariably  lie,  drink  and 
steal." 

Speaking  of  Roosevelt  reminds  me  that  in  German 
East  Africa  I  saw  his  hunting  book,  translated  into 
German,  on  sale  at  the  bookstores.  Everyone  knows 
of  him,  and  around  Mombasa  all  the  natives  say  with 
pride  that  they  saw  him.  There  are  dozens  of  big- 
game  hunters  on  this  boat ;  most  of  them  know  men 
who  were  with  Roosevelt,  and  one  of  them  was  in 
Roosevelt's  party  for  a  time.  They  all  say  Roosevelt 


TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 


was  very  popular  in  Africa,  but  that  Kermit,  his  son, 
was  cordially  despised.  Roosevelt  himself,  they  say, 
is  a  thorough  sportsman,  and  a  man  of  undoubted 
courage.  He  is  not  considered  a  particularly  good 
shot,  but  they  say  he  is  the  luckiest  hunter  who  ever 
handled  a  gun.  Besides,  everything  was  specially  ar- 
ranged for  his  hunt.  Not  only  all  the  white  residents, 
but  all  the  native  chiefs,  did  what  they  could  to  locate 
game  for  him  ;  he  did  not  have  the  trouble  of  the  usual 
hunter.  It  is  further  said  over  here  that  Roosevelt 
was  a  great  talker,  and  that  he  would  quit  hunting 
any  time  to  tell  about  his  well-known  theories  for  bet- 
tering humanity.  .  .  .  It  is  also  agreed  that  hunt- 
ers are  very  unpopular  among  the  actual  residents  of 
Africa  ;  not  that  the  residents  object  to  the  game  be- 
ing killed,  but  every  hunter  requires  a  large  number 
of  natives  for  his  outfit,  and  these  are  drawn  mainly 
from  the  farms,  where  labor  is  scarce,  and  badly  needed. 
There  are  millions  of  native  men  able  to  work,  but  most 
of  them  won't  work.  In  the  native  settlements,  the 
hard  labor  is  mainly  performed  by  the  women,  children, 
and  old  men;  the  stalwart  fellows  who  would  do  the 
work  in  a  civilized  community,  strut  about  covered 
with  grease,  looking  for  fights  with  other  tribes.  The 
whites  say  these  idlers  should  be  made  to  work  ;  that 
it  is  better  that  they  work  for  a  shilling  a  day  than 
spend  their  time  in  idleness  and  mischief,  and  I  would 
not  be  surprised  to  hear  that  the  British  have  adopted 
a  Vagrancy  Act  to  reach  the  loafers. 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          423 

FRIDAY,  APRIL  25. — One  of  the  passengers  plays  the 
piano  a  good  deal,  and  plays  it  well,  and  I  have  just 
learned  that  he  is  a  noted  lion-hunter.  That  is  the 
funniest  combination  I  have  ever  heard  of;  a  piano- 
player  who  is  a  lion-hunter.  .  .  .  There  is  on  board 
a  captain  in  the  British  army,  and  a  captain  in  the 
German  army.  You  would  think  they  would  affiliate, 
but  they  do  not ;  on  the  contrary,  they  glare  at  each 
other.  The  German  captain  wears  his  uniform  a  good 
deal,  and  as  the  British  captain  does  not,  I  am  satisfied 
that  he  thinks  the  German  is  lacking  in  taste.  .  .  . 
Among  the  passengers  are  two  elderly  men  married  to 
young  wives;  Germans  who  occupy  official  positions 
of  some  kind  in  German  East  Africa.  They  are  the 
most  loving  couples  on  board;  the  old  husbands  al- 
ways have  their  arms  about  their  wives  when  on  deck. 
If  there  is  any  one  thing  particularly  fitted  for  privacy, 
it  is  love.  I  think  the  old  gentlemen  believe  that  the 
other  passengers  talk  about  them — and  they  do — and 
want  to  show  them  that  their  young  wives  are  satisfied. 
.  .  .  We  have  been  having  Sports  today,  the  Eng- 
lish gentlemen  having  had  their  way.  .  .  .  Every 
little  while  two  men  dash  by  with  their  legs  tied  to- 
gether. They  are  practicing  for  the  three-legged  race, 
and  have  already  run  over  two  babies  and  one  negro 
boy  nurse.  In  the  Ladies'  Potato  Race,  two  women 
fell  headlong,  and  the  exhibition  of  dry  goods  was  as 
indelicate  as  that  seen  in  a  dry-goods  window  to  show 
new  spring  underwear.  There  is  something  wrong 
with  every  woman's  figure,  and  a  potato-race  brings 
out  the  irregularities. 


424  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

SATURDAY,  APRIL  26. — We  reached  Suez  at  1 : 30 
this  afternoon,  after  a  chilly  ride  through  the  narrow 
end  of  the  Red  Sea,  which  is  known  as  the  Gulf  of 
Suez.  All  morning,  land  was  in  sight  on  both  sides, 
and  lighthouses  on  lonely  islands  were  frequent.  At 
3  o'clock  this  morning  we  passed  Mount  Sinai.  I  have 
asked  about  half  the  passengers  what  happened  on 
Mount  Sinai  to  make  it  famous,  and  they  don't  know. 
.  .  .  Three  hours  before  reaching  Suez  we  saw  a 
steamship  that  had  gone  ashore  during  the  night. 
Another  vessel  was  assisting  it,  and  we  did  not  stop. 
.  .  .  We  had  a  long  wait  at  Suez  before  being  ad- 
mitted to  the  canal.  The  port  doctor,  a  woman,  amused 
us  by  coming  on  board,  and  marshaling  us  in  the  music- 
room  for  inspection.  As  our  names  were  called,  we 
walked  past  the  doctor,  and  she  looked  at  us  in  a  man- 
ner intended  to  be  searching.  I  was  called  out  as 
"Herr  Howe,"  while  Adelaide  answered  to  "Fraulein 
Howe."  .  .  .  We  had  a  scheme  to  go  to  Cairo  by 
special  train  from  Suez,  and  rejoin  the  ship  at  Port 
Said,  but  the  authorities  would  not  let  us  land,  owing 
to  our  taking  on  a  dozen  or  more  Arab  firemen  at  Aden, 
where  there  is  plague.  But  dozens  of  Egyptians  sur- 
rounded the  ship,  in  little  boats,  and  offered'us  all  sorts 
of  articles,  which  they  sent  up  for  our  inspection  in 
baskets.  One  ship  went  into  the  canal  ahead  of  us, 
having  been  waiting  longer,  and  a  dozen  or  more  boats 
came  out  carrying  mud  from  the  canal  dredgers.  Fi- 
nally a  launch  appeared,  bringing  the  long-expected 
pilot,  and  at  5 : 30  P.  M.  we  steamed  slowly  into  the 
canal,  passing  within  a  few  hundred  feet  of  the  main 
streets  of  Suez.  In  an  hour,  we  passed  two  freight 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.         425 

steamers,  and  they  gave  us  right  of  way,  as  ours  is  a 
mail-boat.  .  .  .  The  Suez  Canal,  as  everyone 
knows,  runs  through  the  Egyptian  desert,  and  the  des- 
olation on  the  Arabian  side  interested  me  greatly.  The 
canal  requires  so  many  workmen  that  it  is  fringed  with 
residences  of  one  sort  and  another;  some  are  boat- 
houses,  some  are  huts,  and  some  are  sightly  stations. 
And  every  quarter  of  a  mile  there  seems  to  be  a  dredge, 
to  keep  the  channel  the  required  depth.  Every  foot 
of  the  -canal,  on  both  sides,  is  being  lined  with  stone, 
and  for  this  work  a  great  many  Egyptian  laborers  are 
required.  ...  On  the  Egyptian  side  there  is  a 
fresh-water  canal,  supplied  from  the  Nile,  and  this  is 
used  to  irrigate  a  considerable  stretch  of  country.  With 
a  glass,  we  could  see  a  good  many  typical  Egyptian 
farm-houses,  and  Egyptian  agricultural  life  in  various 
stages ;  but  on  the  Arabian  side,  there  was  the  lonely 
desert  you  have  seen  in  pictures  and  read  about.  At 
one  place  we  saw  a  caravan  of  camels  in  camp  for  the 
night :  the  drivers  in  one  group,  and  the  camels  in 
another.  At  another  place  we  saw  a  jackal  among  the 
little  hills  composed  of  dirt  from  the  canal.  The  ani- 
mal was  gaunt  and  ugly,  and  looked  at  the  ship  indif- 
ferently. There  was  a  great  deal  to  see,  but  the  sun 
was  declining  rapidly,  and  at  7 : 30,  when  we  left  the 
deck  and  went  down  to  dinner,  we  could  see  nothing 
fifty  feet  beyond  the  lighted  decks.  .  .  .  There  was 
to  be  a  dance  after  dinner,  beginning  at  9  o'clock,  but 
the  night  was  cold,  and  before  that  hour  the  travelers 
from  Kansas  went  to  bed ;  just  as  the  ship  entered  one 
of  the  lakes  which  form  thirty  miles  of  the  canal.  In 
this  lake  we  steamed  at  full  speed,  whereas  in  the  canal 


426  TRAVEL  LETTERS  PROM 

proper  we  had  been  running  at  five  miles  an  hour.  At 
Suez,  we  took  on  a  special  lighting  apparatus;  not  a 
headlight,  but  a  searchlight.  This  was  attached  to 
our  prow,  and  lighted  our  way.  .  .  .  The  engineer 
of  the  "  Burgermeister,"  a  fat  German  we  all  admire, 
sat  on  deck  while  we  were  passing  through  the  canal, 
reading  a  newspaper.  I  asked  him  how  often  he  had 
been  through,  and  he  guessed  that  he  had  made  the 
trip  seventy  times.  His  ship  makes  four  trips  a  year 
around  Africa. 


SUNDAY,  APRIL  27. — When  I  went  on  deck  at  5 :  30 
this  morning,  the  sun  was  just  peeping  out  of  the  Med- 
iterranean, and  Port  Said  was  in  sight.  I  was  the  only 
passenger  on  deck,  and  although  I  expected  Adelaide 
every  moment,  she  did  not  appear  until  we  were  tied 
up  in  Port  Said,  an  hour  and  a  half  later;  the  Suez 
Canal  greatly  excited  me,  although  I  had  been  through 
it  before,  but  it  did  not  greatly  excite  Adelaide.  Half 
a  dozen  Arab  sailboats,  loaded  with  coal,  passed  in  the 
canal;  they  had  the  peculiar  sails  seen  on  boats  on 
the  Nile,  and  were  so  old  that  I  wondered  they  did  not 
fall  to  pieces.  On  the  larger  boats  were  three  men,  and 
two  on  the  smaller  ones.  The  masts  were  very  tall, 
and  in  this  flat  country  the  sails  catch  enough  wind  to 
push  the  boats  along.  .  .  .  When  Adelaide  ap- 
peared at  7 : 30,  I  proposed  that  we  go  ashore  before 
breakfast.  She  agreed  to  the  proposition,  and  we  were 
walking  the  streets  of  Port  Said  ten  minutes  later,  as 
the  ship  was  tied  up  within  a  hundred  feet  of  the  prin- 
cipal street.  .  .  .  Port  Said  is  said  to  be  a  very 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.         427 

high-priced  and  dishonest  town,  but  the  boatman 
charged  only  six  cents  each  to  take  us  to  land,  and  the 
price  of  a  carriage  is  only  fifty  cents  an  hour.  We  en- 
gaged a  guide,  because  one  followed  us,  and  began  ex- 
plaining things,  and  we  could  not  get  rid  of  him.  Be- 
sides, he  said  his  price  was  only  a  shilling  an  hour.  In 
no  other  town  we  have  visited  have  we  found  prices 
as  low  as  in  Port  Said,  which  has  a  worse  reputation 
than  any  other  town  in  the  world.  Port  Said  has  reg- 
ulations for  the  protection  of  visitors,  and  enforces 
them.  When  you  go  ashore,  you  do  not  pay  the  boat- 
man, who  may  charge  you  any  price  he  sees  fit,  but 
you  pay  an  official  at  the  landing.  Get  rid  of  the  no- 
tion printed  everywhere  that  Port  Said  is  "tough." 
In  addition  to  being  an  orderly  place,  it  is  very  inter- 
esting. Sunday  is  not  observed  in  the  town,  for  two 
reasons:  1.  Ships  arrive  and  send  passengers  ashore 
nearly  every  hour  of  every  day,  and  these  want  sup- 
plies on  Sunday  the  same  as  on  other  days;  2.  The 
sixty  thousand  inhabitants  are  mainly  Mohammedans, 
and  they  have  no  Sunday.  .  .  .  There  were  sev- 
eral other  ships  in  the  harbor,  and  the  streets  were 
crowded  at  8  A.  M.  In  front  of  one  cafe",  an  orchestra 
of  fifteen  men  and  women  was  playing,  and  playing 
well.  Most  of  the  shops  are  devoted  to  tourist  trade, 
but  we  visited  an  Arab  market  instead  of  the  curio 
stores.  The  older  portion  of  Port  Said  is  as  purely 
Egyptian  as  Cairo,  and  as  dirty  and  oriental.  The 
streets  are  narrow,  and  the  houses  high,  and  the  na- 
tive shops  are  as  interesting  as  they  are  anywhere. 
Our  guide  was  an  Arab,  and  took  us  to  his  church :  a 
Mohammedan  mosque,  which  we  could  not  enter  with- 


428  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

out  putting  coverings  on  our  feet.  Everywhere  we 
heard  exploding  fire-crackers;  today  is  some  sort  of 
Mohammedan  festival.  .  .  .  We  received  a  lot  of 
mail  from  home ;  the  first  in  more  than  four  months. 
After  getting  our  mail,  we  lost  interest  in  Port  Said, 
and  went  back  to  the  ship  to  read  our  letters.  We 
found  these  so  interesting  that  at  10 : 30,  when  the 
"  Burgermeister "  left  for  Naples,  we  barely  glanced  at 
the  famous  statue  to  Ferdinand  de  Lesseps  which 
adorns  the  entrance  to  the  canal. 


MONDAY,  APRIL  28. — We  are  approaching  the 
Blessed  Country  of  Bad  Weather  again.  This  morn- 
ing the  sky  is  as  threatening  as  it  is  on  the  morning 
when  you  give  a  picnic,  and  when  you  wish  it  would 
do  one  thing  or  the  other.  No  country  can  amount  to 
much  without  bad  weather :  the  trouble  with  Africa 
and  Arizona  is  too  much  fine  weather.  .  .  .  The 
Meriterranean,  which  we  all  dreaded,  was  as  smooth 
last  night  as  a  millpond,  and  shows  no  disposition  today 
to  change  its  pacific  character.  .  .  .  The  first 
thing  you  think  of,  on  boarding  a  ship,  is  that  funny 
people  travel.  We  meet  a  few  nice,  normal,  sane  peo- 
ple, but  most  of  them  are  freaks.  On  every  ship  we 
meet  the  foolish  son  of  a  rich  man,  who  is  allowed  to 
travel  to  keep  him  away  from  home.  The  woman 
traveler  is  nearly  always  peculiar;  she  is  usually  an 
old  widow  with  money,  and  as  ugly  as  she  is  cranky. 
There  is  a  professional  traveler  always  met  with  who 
has  no  sense,  and  very  little  politeness,  but  he  has  been 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          429 

everywhere.  It  is  a  mistake  to  imagine  that  only  rich 
and  agreeable  people  are  met  in  traveling.  The  best 
people  remain  at  home;  we  have  met  neither  dukes 
nor  princesses  on  the  trip,  and  very  few  we  remember 
from  one  ship  to  another.  .  .  .  There  is  a  kind  of 
traveler  who  annoys  you  by  his  looks.  A  man  of  this 
type  came  on  board  at  Port  Said.  He  is  a  faded-out 
old  rat  with  gold  teeth,  very  thin  and  sandy  hair,  and 
a  waxed  moustache.  He  is  quite  impatient  because 
he  has  not  created  a  flutter  on  board,  since  it  is  plain 
to  be  seen  that  he  has  traveled  a  great  deal ;  he  is  not 
content  to  wait  a  few  days,  until  news  of  his  exploits 
gets  about  easily  and  naturally.  .  .  .  Another 
man  came  on  board  at  Port  Said  who  is  accompanied 
by  a  wife  and  three  daughters.  The  ship  is  crowded, 
and  this  man,  who  is  paying  five  fares,  sleeps  on  the 
floor!  People  are  that  foolish  about  traveling.  People 
generally  are  as  crazy  and  disagreeable  about  travel- 
ing as  the  English  are  about  Sports.  .  .  .  The 
women  have  great  respect  for  the  bishop  of  their 
church,  but  they  have  greater  respect  for  a  woman 
traveling  with  a  maid.  Every  woman  believes  she  is 
entitled  to  a  maid.  There  is  a  woman  on  board  who 
has  one.  The  other  women  say  she  is  the  slouchiest 
dressed  person  on  the  ship.  You  may  say  that  is  envy, 
but  it  isn't:  it's  the  truth.  .  .  .  When  you  buy 
anything,  pay  for  it  in  cash.  It  is  so  easy  to  sign  a 
check,  or  have  it  charged.  When  the  passengers  buy 
wines,  they  sign  their  names  to  a  slip  of  paper,  and 
settle  once  a  week.  One  of  the  amusing  things  on 
board  is  to  see  the  men  studying  their  bar  bills.  Ev- 
ery passenger  thinks  he  has  been  robbed,  but  his  sig- 


430  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

nature  confronts  him  for  every  item,  and  he  cannot 
get  a  fair  start  at  indignation.  .  .  .  The  New 
York  banker,  Mr.  Hepburn,  mentioned  elsewhere  as 
returning  from  a  hunt,  does  not  have  much  confidence 
in  the  future  of  Africa.  It  has  too  many  pests  and  too 
much  dry  weather,  he  says.  Besides,  much  of  the 
country  is  volcanic,  and  the  soil  a  thin  vegetable  and 
leaf  mold.  Mr.  Hepburn  says  that  while  hunting,  one 
of  his  guides  was  an  Englishman  who  was  once  a  mem- 
ber of  parliament,  with  an  income  of  $60,000  a  year. 
But  he  went  the  pace,  and  spent  his  money,  and  is 
now  a  guide  in  Africa  at  $5  a  day.  Another  guide  in 
the  Hepburn  party  was  a  man  named  Cunningham, 
who  was  attached  to  the  Roosevelt  expedition.  Cun- 
ningham is  a  very  noted  man,  and  receives  $400  a 
month  for  his  services.  Although  Mr.  Hepburn  is  a 
New  York  banker,  a  former  comptroller  of  the  cur- 
rency, and  noted  big-game  hunter,  it  is  so  dull  on 
board  that  he  spends  a  good  deal  of  his  tune  teaching 
Adelaide  card  tricks.  He  is  an  elderly  man,  and  so 
modest  and  polite  that  we  regard  him  as  a  credit  to 
his  country.  ...  A  party  of  eight  came  on  board 
at  Port  Said,  and  I  am  glad  they  are  not  Americans. 
They  are  English  or  Colonials,  and  have  taken  the  ship. 
They  are  very  superior  in  three  particulars :  1.  They 
went  to  Port  Said  two  weeks  ago  in  the  "Tabora,"  a 
larger  and  newer  ship  than  the  "  Burgermeister ;"  2. 
They  were  in  Cairo  four  days ;  3.  They  have  been  in 
Palestine.  They  sit  together  in  the  dining-room,  and 
every  other  word  they  use  is  "Tabora,"  a  leviathan  of 
8,000  tons.  These  people  are  going  to  London,  and 
this  is  their  first  trip.  There  are  three  girls  in  the  party, 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.         431 

all  of  them  in  love  with  one  sweet  young  man,  and  they 
hold  his  hand  on  deck.  The  other  passengers  look  at 
them  in  astonishment,  if  not  disgust.  Americans  are 
said  to  be  "loud."  I  don't  believe  they  are  half  as 
bad  as  they  are  reported  to  be.  A  German  ship  cap- 
tain once  said  to  me :  "The  Americans  are,  as  a  rule, 
our  best  behaved  passengers,  followed  by  the  Germans. 
The  worst  behaved  are  the  English."  ...  In  the 
traveling  I  have  done,  I  have  seen  few  "loud"  Ameri- 
cans, but  I  have  seen  many  "loud"  English.  And  it 
is  the  English  who  criticise  us  most. 


TUESDAY,  APRIL  29. — We  have  seen  no  land  since 
leaving  Port  Said,  except  that  we  passed  the  island  of 
Crete.  Some  say  we  passed  it  last  evening,  and  some 
say  we  passed  it  this  morning :  it  has  been  pointed  out 
to  me  twice,  and  both  sights  of  it  were  very  hazy. 
.  .  .  Ships  are  not  seen  as  frequently  in  the  Medi- 
terranean as  in  the  Red  Sea;  we  have  seen  but  one 
steamship  in  two  days — a  big  P.  &  O.  liner  en  route 
to  India.  On  the  Red  Sea,  a  half-dozen  were  fre- 
quently in  sight  at  one  time.  The  explanation  is  that 
the  Mediterranean  is  wide,  and  ships  keep  a  consid- 
erable distance  from  each  other,  whereas  the  Red  Sea 
is  often  almost  as  narrow  as  a  river.  .  .  .  There 
are  two  women  on  board  from  Johannesburg,  but  they 
did  not  know  each  other  there ;  indeed,  they  had  never 
heard  of  each  other  before  coming  on  board.  Each 
says  of  the  other :  "I  cannot  imagine  who  she  can  be." 
.  .  .  When  a  German  leaves  the  ship's  table,  he 


432  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

bows  very  politely  to  those  passengers  remaining.  I 
believe  this  very  pretty  custom  is  confined  entirely  to 
the  Germans.  .  .  .  The  barkeeper  has  been  hu- 
miliated, and  relieved  from  duty ;  I  don't  know  what 
his  offense  was,  but  I  hear  he  is  charged  with  becom- 
ing impatient  while  on  duty.  The  Germans  say  that 
when  a  man  is  employed  to  serve  the  public,  impa- 
tience is  a  gross  offense,  and  I  agree  with  them.  For  a 
day  or  two,  the  barkeeper  did  nothing,  and  was  the 
most  contrite  and  penitent  human  being  I  have  ever 
seen,  but  this  morning  he  appeared  as  a  waiter  in  the 
dining-room,  and  is  trying  hard  to  regain  the  favor 
of  the  chief  steward.  .  .  .  There  are  many  foolish 
things  for  men  to  do,  but  probably  the  most  foolish 
is  to  buy  champagne.  Every  day  at  dinner  I  see 
dozens  of  men  pay  three  or  four  dollars  for  a  bottle  of 
champagne,  simply  to  "act  smart."  Boys  are  not 
the  only  ones  who  "act  smart"  in  company,  and  force 
their  parents  to  whip  them.  .  .  .  The  passenger 
who  has  his  wife  and  three  daughters  with  him  attracts 
a  great  deal  of  attention  from  the  men.  His  women- 
folks have  four  pieces  of  fancy  work  under  way  all  the 
time;  think  of  that  man's  dry-goods  bills!  And  I 
cannot  sleep  at  night  from  thinking  what  his  laundry 
bill  must  be.  There  is  a  laundry  on  board,  operated 
by  Chinese,  who  do  excellent  work,  but  their  prices 
are  something  to  talk  about.  I  sent  out  a  little  dab 
of  washing  the  other  day,  and  the  bill  was  $6.  I  pay 
for  waists  for  only  one  woman,  whereas  that  other  man 
must  pay  for  waists  for  four.  It  should  be  against  the 
law  for  any  man  to  take  care  of  four  women.  .  .  . 
The  New  York  banker  who  is  returning  from  a  hunting 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          433 

trip  in  Africa,  is  a  director  in  the  Texas  company, 
which  is  trying  to  become  as  great  a  robber  as  the 
Standard  Oil  Co.  He  told  me  today  that  a  few  months 
ago  his  company  let  a  contract  to  an  American  firm 
for  an  additional  tank  steamer,  at  $590,000.  A  foreign 
builder  offered  to  build  exactly  the  same  ship  for  $380,- 
000.  The  Texas  company  was  compelled  to  pay  forty 
per  cent  additional  because  of  our  policy  of  protection. 
What  becomes  of  that  additional  $210,000?  Does  it 
go  to  American  labor?  .  .  .  Most  of  it,  probably. 
When  you  pay  high  prices  for  meat,  the  farmer  is  being 
benefited ;  when  the  Texas  company  pays  a  high  price 
for  a  ship,  the  workmen  who  fashion  the  ship,  and  mine 
the  steel  that  goes  into  it,  are  benefited.  Taxes,  how- 
ever collected,  mean  a  burden  to  the  consumer.  When 
you  pay  twenty  cents  for  an  article  which  formerly 
cost  ten  cents,  three  cents  of  the  excess  goes  to  the 
workman,  and  seven  cents  of  the  excess  is  charged  by 
the  American  politician  for  cost  of  collection.  It  is 
the  workers  who  pay  taxes  and  the  tremendous  cost 
of  collection.  ...  I  have  frequently  spoken  in 
these  notes  of  hearing  the  English  everywhere  compli- 
ment America.  The  notion  that  foreigners  sneer  at 
us,  is  a  mistaken  one.  In  the  London  Telegraph,  a 
copy  of  which  I  picked  up  today,  I  read  a  page  refer- 
ence to  the  death  of  J.  Pierpont  Morgan. 

"The  field  of  the  American  financier,"  the  article 
said,  "is  a  country  sixty  times  the  area  of  England,  the 
most  richly  endowed  territory  in  the  world,  inhabited 
by  ninety  millions  of  the  most  energetic  wealth-pro- 
ducers on  the  face  of  the  globe." 

In  the  same  article  I  read  that  Mr.  Morgan  once 


434  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

called  on  the  German  Kaiser.  Afterwards  the  Kaiser 
said  he  was  surprised  to  find  Mr.  Morgan  "not  well 
informed  regarding  the  philosophical  development  of 
nations."  I  often  think  the  philosopher  is  an  unim- 
portant man ;  he  looks  into  the  future,  and  sees  many 
things  that  are  not  there.  The  philosopher  is  a  re- 
cluse ;  a  thinker.  He  hides  away  from  mankind,  and 
writes  books  about  subjects  he  does  not  know  much 
about.  J.  P.  Morgan  knew  mankind  intimately,  and 
benefited  it  because  of  his  knowledge.  He  made  bets 
that  the  people  would  do  certain  things  at  certain  times, 
and  became  rich  because  of  the  accuracy  of  his  knowl- 
edge ;  yet  he  is  accused  of  knowing  nothing  about  "the 
philosophical  development  of  nations"!  He  had  a 
tremendous  fund  of  practical  knowledge,  and  that  beats 
all  the  philosophy  in  the  world.  Morgan  believed  that 
in  the  human  family,  character  was  everything ;  that 
character  was  the  basis  of  all  credit,  and  that  the  simple 
doctrine  of  good  conduct  for  its  own  sake,  is  the  great- 
est religion  in  the  world.  How  superior  Morgan's 
simple  religion  was  to  the  Hindu's  philosophy!  Mor- 
gan was  an  humble  citizen,  yet  he  accomplished  more 
than  did  Kaiser  Wilhelm,  a  philosopher  and  a  king. 
A  nation  fought  Morgan  continuously'  and  bitterly, 
yet  he  was  undoubtedly  a  public  benefactor.  Wilhelm 
had  the  love  of  a  great  nation,  yet  he  undoubtedly  talks 
too  much,  and  has  been  repeatedly  humiliated  for  the 
habit.  Wilhelm  is  great  in  spite  of  his  indiscretions, 
being  a  king ;  but  J.  P.  Morgan  was  great  in  spite  of 
the  fact  that  he  lacked  the  friendship  of  his  own  nation, 
and  was  compelled  to  do  his  good  work  in  the  face  of 
bitter  and  often  malicious  opposition. 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          435 

WEDNESDAY,  APRIL  30. — When  I  went  on  deck  this 
morning,  several  of  the  passengers  were  ahead  of  me, 
gazing  at  mountains  off  to  the  right :  Italy.  By  9 
o'clock  we  were  close  to  the  shore,  and  with  a  glass 
could  see  many  villages  still  in  ruins  from  the  earth- 
quake of  five  years  ago.  The  sides  of  the  mountains 
were  terraced,  and  used  as  vineyards.  In  one  place, 
in  a  canyon  far  up  the  mountain,  we  saw  a  village 
which  seemed  to  have  been  built  around  an  old  castle. 
We  were  approaching  the  Strait  of  Messina,  and  ships 
were  as  numerous  as  they  were  in  the  narrowest  part 
of  the  Red  Sea ;  at  one  time,  seven  sailing-ships  were 
in  sight,  and  several  steamers.  Presently,  on  the  left, 
Sicily  appeared,  and  we  gazed  at  Sicily  awhile,  and 
then  went  over  to  the  other  deck  and  looked  at  Italy, 
unable  to  decide  which  was  the  more  interesting. 
Both  are  very  mountainous,  and  much  alike.  Vil- 
lages are  thick,  not  only  along  the  shore,  but  the  sides 
of  the  mountain  are  spotted  with  them,  and  in  both 
Italy  and  Sicily  we  saw  many  curious  old  castles  and 
monasteries.  On  both  sides,  also,  we  saw  many  ruins 
from  the  earthquake,  although  they  seemed  to  be  rather 
more  numerous  in  Sicily  than  in  Italy.  .  .  .  Just 
before  entering  the  Strait  at  the  narrowest  part,  where 
it  is  only  two  miles  wide,  we  saw  the  town  of  Messina, 
which  was  almost  completely  destroyed  by  the  earth- 
quake of  1908.  Hundreds  of  the  wrecked  houses  seem 
never  to  have  been  rebuilt,  and  they  present  a  scene 
of  desolation,  but  around  them  many  new  houses  have 
been  built.  This  is  also  true  on  the  Italian  coast. 
Many  of  these  new  houses  were  sent  from  America, 
ready  to  set  up.  Messina  had  a  population  of  eighty 


436  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

thousand.  Its  old  citadel  was  not  destroyed,  and  we 
saw  a  good  many  ships  in  its  harbor.  Opposite  Mes- 
sina is  the  Italian  town  of  Riggio,  which  is  six  or  seven 
hundred  years  older  than  the  Christian  era.  On  both 
sides  of  the  Strait  we  could  see  broad  streams  (per- 
fectly dry  as  a  result  of  a  recent  drouth)  coming  from 
the  mountains.  .  .  .  The  captain  said  we  should 
be  in  the  most  interesting  part  of  the  Strait  at  1  P.  M., 
the  lunch  hour,  and  ordered  lunch  postponed  half  an 
hour.  His  prediction  was  exactly  verified,  and  nothing 
could  have  driven  the  passengers  from  the  decks  at 
1  p.  M.,  there  was  so  much  to  see.  .  .  .  At  4  p.  M. 
we  came  to  Stromboli,  a  volcanic  island  in  the  sea. 
Captain  Ulrich  said  he  would  pass  on  the  south  side 
of  the  mountain,  that  we  might  better  see  the  volcano ; 
the  distance  was  greater,  but  this  change  in  the  ship's 
course  enabled  us  to  get  a  very  fine  sight  of  Stromboli. 
From  the  south  side  we  saw  the  crater,  and  the  smoke 
pouring  out  of  it  in  great  volume.  There  is  no  light- 
house on  Stromboli,  as  the  volcano  furnishes  a  red  glare 
by  which  mariners  steer  their  course  at  night.  You 
would  think  people  would  keep  away  from  a  lonely 
island  in  the  sea  which  smokes  all  the  time,  and  is 
liable  to  erupt,  and  destroy  everything  for  many  miles 
around,  but  they  don't.  We  saw  two  villages  on  Strom- 
boli :  one  of  them  of  good  size.  The  larger  one  is 
located  a  considerable  distance  from  the  crater,  but  the 
other  is  not  a  thousand  feet  from  the  track  of  the  lava 
as  it  descends  to  the  sea.  And  these  smoking  volcanoes 
not  only  bark ;  they  bite.  Only  a  few  miles  away  is 
Messina,  where  eighty  thousand  people  were  destroyed 
only  five  years  ago.  In  the  other  direction  is  Vesuvius, 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          437 

which  has  taken  a  greedy  toll  of  human  life  for  many 
years ;  the  last  time  in  1906. 


THURSDAY,  MAY  1. — I  have  seen  many  prettier 
sights  than  the  far-famed  Bay  of  Naples.  Many  peo- 
ple say  a  look  at  the  bay  caused  them  to  forget  the 
frets  and  worries  of  life,  but  I  had  no  such  feeling. 
We  arrived  early  in  the  morning,  when  the  town  was 
partly  hidden  in  mists,  but  later  I  saw  the  bay  in  bright 
sunshine,  from  several  points  of  advantage,  but  it  did 
not  greatly  impress  me.  The  Bay  of  Naples  is  so 
large  that  it  is  not  a  harbor,  therefore  a  breakwater 
has  been  constructed,  and  behind  this  our  ship  an- 
chored, in  company  with  a  good  many  others.  .  .  . 
I  have  spoken  elsewhere  of  English  becoming  the  uni- 
versal language.  This  morning  I  heard  the  Italian 
pilot  telling  the  captain  of  the  ship  a  piece  of  war  news. 
The  pilot  talked  broken  English.  A  Frenchman,  a 
Portuguese,  a  Belgian  and  a  Hollander  gathered  to 
hear  the  war  news,  and  they  all  understood  English. 
.  .  .  After  the  usual  medical  inspection,  which  al- 
ways seems  ineffective  and  useless  in  the  first  cabin, 
the  passengers  were  allowed  to  land.  We  went  to  the 
Hotel  Vesuve,  where  I  had  been  before,  and  were  given 
two  excellent  rooms  overlooking  the  bay.  In  front  of 
the  hotel  was  a  street,  and  then  the  sea,  and  from  my 
window  I  watched  the  fishermen  at  work ;  they  were 
so  close  that  I  could  have  hailed  them,  and  asked  what 
sort  of  fish  they  were  taking  out  of  the  nets.  Directly 
in  front  of  our  windows  was  an  old  castle  and  fort,  and 


438  TRAVEL  LETTERS  PROM 

soldiers  were  always  passing  in  or  out  of  the  gate. 
The  Hotel  Vesuve  is  the  best  of  the  dozens  at  which 
we  have  stopped,  and  the  price  is  only  thirty-six  francs 
per  day;  that  is,  we  have  two  of  the  best  rooms  in 
one  of  the  best  hotels  in  Italy,  and  the  price  is  $3.60 
per  day  each,  including  meals.  Living  at  the  hotels 
in  South  Africa  is  pioneering  compared  with  living 
at  the  Hotel  Vesuve  in  Naples.  Living  at  hotels  is  a 
joke  at  home,  but  living  at  the  Hotel  Vesuve  in  Naples 
makes  a  man  think  of  breaking  up  housekeeping.  .  .  . 
Adelaide  thinks  Naples  is  the  most  delightful  town  we 
have  seen;  and  the  list  of  towns  we  have  visited  in- 
cludes Pompeii,  which  was  destroyed  by  an  eruption 
from  Mount  Vesuvius  in  the  year  79.  It  was  so  com- 
pletely covered  up  by  ashes  that  its  site  was  forgotten, 
and  it  lay  neglected  for  seventeen  hundred  years. 
Then  the  work  of  digging  it  out  began,  and  is  still  in 
progress,  and  will  continue  for  many  years  to  come. 
Pompeii  existed  long  before  Naples ;  it  was  an  old  city 
when  Christ  was  born,  and  was  a  seaside  resort  of  the 
Romans.  Probably  everyone  has  read  the  story  of 
Pompeii,  and  I  shall  not  print  it  again,  except  to  ex- 
press my  astonishment  over  the  fact  that  much  of  the 
finest  art  work  in  the  world  today  was  found  in  the 
ruins  of  Pompeii;  the  moderns  have  not  been  able 
to  equal  it.  Everything  of  interest  found  in  the  ruins 
may  now  be  seen  in  the  museum  at  Naples.  The 
people  of  Pompeii  had  excellent  plumbing  at  the  time 
of  the  eruption;  probably  the  ancients  thousands  of 
years  earlier  knew  much  that  we  now  call  modern.  In 
the  museum  at  Naples  may  be  seen  jewelry  from  Pom- 
peii that  would  pass  for  an  exhibit  made  in  1913 ;  pat- 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          439 

terns  are  the  same,  and  the  work  equally  good.  The 
implements  used  today  by  dentists  and  doctors  may 
also  be  seen  among  the  relics  from  Pompeii.  There  is 
an  ugly  instrument  known  as  the  speculum,  which  may 
be  seen  in  drug  stores  and  doctors'  offices ;  I  have  no 
doubt  it  was  used  too  much  three  thousand  or  more 
years  ago,  for  I  saw  one  in  the  museum  at  Naples.  It 
was  found  in  the  ruins  of  Pompeii,  and  it  is  exactly 
like  the  instrument  used  too  much  today.  ...  I 
will  mention  another  thing  about  Pompeii  the  general 
reader  may  not  know.  The  Romans  and  Greeks  who 
occupied  the  town  were  a  dissolute,  pleasure-loving  lot, 
and  they  left  many  relics  that  are  shown  to  men  only. 
In  the  big  museum  at  Naples,  there  is  one  room  prob- 
ably forty  feet  long,  and  half  as  wide.  In  it  are  pre- 
served literally  thousands  of  disreputable  things  found 
in  Pompeii.  They  include  statuary  and  pictures  in 
mosaics.  I  heard  a  woman  say  lately  that  she  despised 
Pompeii  so  much  that  she  did  not  enjoy  her  visit  to  the 
place;  probably  her  husband  had  told  her  what  he 
saw  in  the  Dirty  Room,  and  she  hated  the  people  who 
formerly  occupied  the  deserted  houses  and  streets. 
The  people  are  certainly  improving  in  morals  all  the 
time ;  we  are  not  as  good  as  we  should  be  now,  but  we 
are  better  in  every  respect  than  the  ancients  were.  I 
often  wonder  that  the  ancients,  who  believed  in  so 
many  gods,  were  not  scared  into  better  conduct.  .  .  . 
Pompeii  is  reached  by  railroad  train  from  Naples.  If 
you  take  an  express  train,  the  twenty  miles  may  be 
traveled  in  half  an  hour.  Electric  cars  also  run  there, 
but  they  make  many  stops,  and  are  much  slower. 
When  you  are  in  Pompeii,  you  are  near  Vesuvius,  the 


440  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

mountain  which  has  destroyed  so  many  lives.  It  is 
particularly  peaceful  just  now,  and  I  saw  no  smoke 
issuing  from  the  crater.  Seven  years  ago  it  went  on  a 
rampage,  and  destroyed  several  villages  and  six  or 
seven  hundred  lives.  At  that  time  the  mountain  lost 
three  hundred  feet  of  its  top,  and  is  so  insignificant- 
looking  now  that  a  good  many  visitors  to  Naples  do 
not  make  the  journey  to  the  summit,  which  is  easily 
accomplished  by  electric  and  cog  railway.  A  mountain 
near  Vesuvius  is  now  higher  than  Vesuvius  itself,  but 
the  wicked  old  pile  will  grow,  and  no  doubt  will  erupt 
at  some  time  in  the  future,  and  kill  thousands  again. 
Stromboli,  which  we  saw  yesterday,  is  a  much  more 
impressive  sight  at  present  than  Vesuvius. 


FRIDAY,  MAY  2. — It  has  been  said  a  good  many  times 
that  Italy  has  too  many  churches  and  royal  palaces. 
Naples  has  two  royal  palaces,  although  the  king  lives 
at  Rome.  One  is  in  town,  and  the  other  in  the  coun- 
try, near  the  sea.  We  visited  the  king's  town  palace, 
as  it  is  open  to  the  public  two  days  of  the  week.  There 
are  eight  hundred  rooms  in  the  place,  and  twelve  hun- 
dred servants  care  for  it.  ...  A  room  in  a  king's 
palace  is  usually  a  huge  affair,  probably  100x50  feet, 
with  an  oval  ceiling,  and  great  chandeliers  containing 
candles  specially  manufactured  for  royalty.  The  furni- 
ture in  each  room  is  of  a  different  pattern ;  fancy  chairs 
and  divans  made  of  gilt  and  brocade.  No  palace  seems 
to  have  been  made  as  a  place  of  residence  for  a  family, 
but  for  show,  and  intrigue,  and  murder,  and  dancing, 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          441 

and  alarms,  and  riots.  Most  of  the  famous  murders 
in  history  have  taken  place  in  palaces.  Not  far  from 
the  king's  town  palace  in  Naples  is  an  old  palace  now 
occupied  by  soldiers  as  a  barracks.  It  is  a  dirty  place, 
but  we  were  taken  to  the  upper  rooms  where  are  pre- 
served relics  of  royalty  nearly  a  thousand  years  old. 
These  include  a  chapel,  decorated  by  artists  of  great 
fame.  Then  we  were  taken  down  a  winding  stairway 
into  a  terrible  place  where  dead  bodies  were  displayed 
in  coffins.  The  dead  bodies  in  the  coffins  were  those 
of  princes,  and  cardinals,  and  all  of  them  had  died 
violent  deaths.  One  cardinal  had  an  expression  of 
agony  on  his  face  which  will  haunt  me  for  months; 
he  had  been  smothered  in  the  most  inhuman  way. 
The  bodies  we  saw  were  dressed  in  the  magnificent 
clothing  they  wore  when  they  were  murdered.  This 
sight  was  seen  in  a  noisome  hole  underground,  and  was 
so  terrible  that  Adelaide  almost  cried  when  she  begged 
me  to  take  her  out.  We  had  a  guide  with  us,  and  a 
warder  from  the  castle,  but  neither  of  them  could  tell 
us  much  about  the  place,  except  that  it  is  a  relic  of 
Spanish  occupation  in  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  cen- 
turies. ...  In  thinking  of  the  magnificence  of 
palaces  and  castles,  always  remember  the  terrible  mur- 
ders that  have  disgraced  them.  A  king  fills  us  com- 
mon people  with  awe,  but  he  always  has  a  brother,  an 
uncle,  a  cousin,  or  some  other  near  relative  who  knows 
that  he  deserves  death.  I  think  I  have  longed  for 
nearly  everything  else,  but  I  never  longed  to  be  a  king, 
nor  would  I  care  to  live  in  a  palace  with  twelve  hun- 
dred servants,  any  one  of  whom  would  poison  me  for 
two  dollars  and  promise  of  a  postoffice.  .  .  .  On 


442  TRAVEL  LETTERS  PROM 

the  way  to  the  king's  town  palace  we  passed  through 
the  old  part  of  Naples;  a  district  of  tall  houses,  all 
of  them  crowded  with  poor  people.  The  street  was 
very  narrow,  and  the  sun  was  almost  obscured  by 
clothes  newly  washed,  and  drying  in  the  sunlight. 
The  wash-lines  ran  across  the  streets,  and  were  so  thick 
that  I  thought  the  sight  the  most  curious  I  had  ever 
seen.  The  streets  were  so  crowded  with  children  that 
we  got  through  them  with  difficulty,  and  every  little 
while  some  one  who  had  been  to  America,  hailed  us  in 
bad  English.  The  lower  floor  of  every  house  was 
nearly  always  occupied  with  a  little  shop,  in  which 
a  family  also  lived.  In  one  of  these  places,  a  little 
child  was  lying  dead.  The  body  was  surrounded  with 
candles,  and  five  women  sat  in  the  room.  For  some 
reason,  the  mother  of  the  child  wanted  us  to  look  at  it ; 
she  came  out  into  the  street,  weeping,  and  made  mo- 
tions indicating  that  she  wanted  us  to  go  in,  which 
we  did.  The  guide  said  the  woman's  husband  was  in 
America,  and  that  she  felt  a  friendly  interest  in  us  on 
that  account.  .  .  .  The  street  was  a  steep  one; 
so  steep  that  we  went  down  it  by  means  of  broad  steps. 
I  have  seen  a  street  almost  exactly  like  it  in  Jerusalem. 
The  cross-streets  were  narrower  and  steeper  than  the 
main  street  we  traveled,  and  I  was  almost  disposed 
to  agree  with  Adelaide  that  Naples  is  the  most  inter- 
esting place  we  have  visited.  .  .  .  James  Gordon 
Bennett,  of  the  New  York  Herald,  issues  an  edition  of 
his  paper  in  Paris,  and  it  is  sold  all  over  Europe  by 
street  peddlers.  Twenty  tunes  a  minute  we  were 
offered  a  copy  of  the  Herald;  the  peddlers  knew  we 
were  Americans,  and  were  so  insistent  that  I  always 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          443 

carried  a  copy  of  the  paper  in  my  pocket,  to  show  them 
I  had  one.  They  also  sold  the  New  York  Times,  and 
I  carried  a  copy  of  that  paper,  too.  .  .  .  Flowers 
grow  in  great  profusion  in  Italy,  and  are  sold  by  street 
peddlers  who  are  hanging  onto  your  carriage  half  the 
time.  I  bought  fifteen  very  fine  roses,  on  one  occasion, 
for  ten  cents.  .  .  .  The  Italian  lire  and  the  French 
franc  are  of  the  same  value,  twenty  cents,  and  the 
franc  circulates  everywhere  in  Italy,  as  the  lire  cir- 
culates everywhere  in  France.  If  you  ask  for  Italian 
money  in  Italy,  you  are  as  apt  to  get  francs  as  lires. 
.  .  .  Prices  may  have  advanced  abroad,  as  at  home, 
but  I  doubt  if  the  advance  has  been  as  great.  Adelaide 
needed  a  pair  of  gloves,  and  the  price  at  one  of  the  best 
shops  in  Naples  was  fifty  cents  a  pair.  The  same 
gloves  would  cost  $1.50  at  home.  .  .  .  You  hear 
a  great  deal  about  tips  abroad :  how  the  servants  mob 
you  at  hotels,  etc.  The  tip  nuisance  is  worse  in  New 
York  than  it  is  in  Naples;  besides,  larger  tips  are 
exacted  in  New  York.  Carriage-hire  here  is  less  than 
half  what  it  is  in  New  York,  and  when  I  land  in  that 
American  city  I  shall  pay  for  rooms  at  the  Waldorf- 
Astoria  more  than  I  paid  for  rooms  and  meals  at  the 
Hotel  Vesuve.  And  Naples  is  one  of  the  greatest  re- 
sorts in  Europe,  and  the  Hotel  Vesuve  is  one  of  the 
best  hotels  in  Naples.  .  .  .  We  expressed  a  desire 
to  see  the  San  Carlos  theatre,  one  of  the  most  famous 
in  the  world,  and  the  guide  promptly  took  us  there, 
and  had  it  lighted  up  for  our  special  benefit.  I  was 
willing  to  give  the  theatre  man  forty  cents,  but  our 
man  said  twenty  cents  was  enough,  and  that  was  what 
we  paid.  The  cathedral  in  Naples  is  also  a  famous 


444  TRAVEL  LETTERS  PROM 

place,  built  in  imitation  of  St.  Peters,  in  Rome.  And 
it  is  a  very  good  imitation.  The  guide  took  us  through 
this  church,  and  never  gave  the  priest  guides  more 
than  half  a  franc,  or  ten  cents  each.  I  suppose  he 
robbed  us  a  good  deal,  but  I  never  caught  him  at  it. 
You  are  always  hearing  that  when  you  shop  in  Naples, 
the  shopkeeper  is  compelled  to  add  something  to  the 
price  for  the  guide.  One  day  the  guide  left  us  for  a 
few  minutes,  in  a  famous  arcade,  and  we  found  prices 
the  same  as  when  the  guide  was  along.  English  is 
spoken  nearly  everywhere  in  Naples  and  throughout 
Italy,  because  so  many  of  its  citizens  have  been  to  the 
United  States.  .  .  .  The  Italian  girls  are  nearly 
all  good-looking  when  young,  but  after  they  are  mar- 
ried and  have  children,  most  of  them  become  too  fat. 
I  have  always  thought  it  a  good  joke  on  a  man  to  marry 
a  girl  weighing  a  hundred  pounds,  and  have  her  in- 
crease her  weight  to  two  hundred,  or  two  hundred  and 
fifty.  And  the  joke  on  the  man  is  particularly  good  if 
his  daughters,  on  reaching  fifteen  or  sixteen,  are  also 
very  fat. 


SATURDAY,  MAY  3. — I  had  intended  sailing  from 
Naples  on  the  North  German-Lloyd  ship  "Princess 
Irene,"  a  favorite,  but  when  I  reached  Cook's  office  I 
found  the  ship  crowded.  I  was  offered  the  second  of- 
ficer's room,  if  I  paid  $60  extra,  but  in  pursuance  of 
my  vow  to  avoid  favorites  in  future,  I  concluded  to 
travel  to  New  York  on  the  French  ship  "Canada." 
This  ship  is  new,  and  has  not  yet  had  time  to  become 
a  favorite,  so  I  secured  very  much  better  accommoda- 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          445 

tions  at  a  lower  price  than  was  demanded  for  the  Ger- 
man boat.  ...  In  Cairo,  Egypt,  is  a  famous  hotel 
known  as  Shepherd's.  There  are  at  least  four  hotels 
in  Cairo  better  than  Shepherd's ;  there  are  half  a  dozen 
just  as  good,  and  another  half-dozen  where  you  may 
secure  satisfactory  accommodations.  Avoid  favorites 
of  every  kind,  if  you  wish  fair  treatment.  .  .  . 
Wherever  a  traveler  goes,  he  encounters  free  advertis- 
ing for  the  United  States,  but  I  saw  a  stars-and-stripes 
sight  in  Naples  this  afternoon  that  greatly  impressed 
me.  The  "Canada"  and  "Princess  Irene"  were 
docked  side  by  side,  and  as  both  were  to  sail  at  6  P.  M. 
for  New  York,  both  displayed  the  American  flag.  When 
I  went  to  the  dock  at  4  p.  M.,  the  decks  of  both  ships 
were  black  with  emigrants,  and  they  were  still  going 
up  the  gangways  as  thick  as  ants.  When  Adelaide 
and  I  went  aboard  the  "Canada,"  the  sailors  were  com- 
pelled to  clear  a  way  for  us  to  the  first-class  decks, 
where  there  were  fifty  passengers,  as  compared  with 
three  or  four  hundred  in  the  second  cabin,  and  nearly 
two  thousand  in  the  steerage.  Once  on  the  upper 
decks  of  the  "Canada,"  we  could  see  a  similar  crowd 
of  emigrants  on  the  "Princess  Irene,"  which  lay 
alongside,  and  the  emigrants  kept  coming  until  six 
o'clock,  when  the  big  whistle  blew,  and  the  gang-plank 
was  drawn  in.  Three  ships  left  Naples  for  New  York 
today,  and  all  of  them  were  crowded  with  emigrants. 
And  this  doesn't  happen  occasionally;  it  is  of  daily 
occurrence — not  only  here,  but  in  many  other  ports. 
In  every  part  of  the  world  the  people  know  about  the 
United  States,  and  go  there  in  constantly  increasing 
crowds,  although  South  Africa,  and  Australia,  and 


446  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

South  America,  and  New  Zealand,  and  Canada,  and 
many  other  countries,  are  offering  inducements  to  im- 
migrants. .  .  .  We  got  away  a  little  after  6 :  30 
o'clock,  and  found  the  sea  kind  again ;  this  is  our  twen- 
ty-fifth day  at  sea  without  discomfort.  There  was  a 
shower  of  rain  just  before  we  left  Naples,  which  drove 
to  cover  the  thousands  of  weeping  women  who  had 
come  to  the  dock  to  see  friends  depart,  but  outside  the 
bay  the  sea  was  calm.  Ten  or  fifteen  poor  children 
were  on  the  dock,  begging  the  passengers  for  pennies, 
but  the  rain  didn't  bother  them.  There  was  one  boy 
who  could  turn  handsprings,  but  while  he  was  showing 
off  his  accomplishment,  the  other  children  got  the  pen- 
nies. The  moral  is,  attend  to  business,  and  don't  show 
off. 


SUNDAY,  MAY  4. — When  we  awoke  this  morning,  the 
"Canada"  was  lying  in  the  harbor  of  Palermo,  in  Sicily, 
where  it  spent  the  day  in  taking  on  more  emigrants. 
As  the  ship  was  to  remain  until  evening,  we  went 
ashore  at  8 : 30  for  the  day,  accompanied  by  an  old 
gentleman  of  seventy-six,  who  acted  as  guide.  .  .  . 
I  have  neglected  Palermo  in  my  reading;  I  knew  al- 
most nothing  about  it.  I  didn't  know  it  contained 
another  palace  belonging  to  the  king  of  Italy,  and 
about  four  hundred  thousand  people.  ...  A  few 
men  are  natural-born  gentlemen.  Our  old  guide  was 
such  a  man.  He  lived  in  the  United  States,  as  a  young 
man,  and  we  were  much  pleased  with  him.  ...  In 
Italian  and  Sicilian  towns,  nearly  every  family  owns  a 
milk  goat.  These  goats  are  sent  to  the  country,  to 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          447 

graze,  and  are  brought  in  every  night  and  morning  to 
be  milked.  We  drove  up-town  in  Palermo  just  as  the 
milk  goats  were  being  collected  by  the  herd  boys.  The 
goats  know  where  they  belong,  and  often  climb  two  or 
three  flights  of  stairs,  to  be  milked.  Milch  cows  are 
also  driven  into  town,  and  milked  in  the  streets.  The 
calves  accompany  their  mothers,  and  to  insure  that 
they  will  not  get  lost,  are  tied  to  their  mother's  tail. 
There  is  a  certain  brand  of  Italian  cattle,  and  they 
have  not  changed  since  the  days  of  the  Romans ;  every 
section  of  the  Old  World  has  its  particular  kind  of  cat- 
tle. In  South  Africa  we  saw  a  good  many  queer-look- 
ing cattle  from  Madagascar,  imported  after  the  rinder- 
pest had  killed  nearly  everything  in  Africa.  In  Egypt 
we  saw  another  kind.  India  has  another  variety,  and 
the  Scotch  and  Irish  also  have  varieties  of  their  own. 
In  the  United  States  we  are  constantly  improving  cat- 
tle, and  have  no  favorite  except  the  best.  .  .  .  Al- 
though we  visited  Palermo  on  Sunday,  the  public  mar- 
ket was  in  full  blast.  One  man  was  making  a  tremen- 
dous outcry  to  attract  attention  to  his  beef.  He  said 
it  was  very  cheap;  the  price  was  thirty-two  cents  a 
pound.  Beef  is  very  high-priced  in  Sicily,  and  so  are 
fish,  but  poultry  is  quite  cheap.  .  .  .  Palermo  has 
a  wonderful  cathedral,  and  the  guide  took  us  there, 
during  a  mass.  There  was  a  large  choir  of  men  and 
boys,  and  an  archbishop  conducted  the  service.  The 
old  guide  was  a  devout  Catholic,  and  frequently  crossed 
himself  while  in  the  cathedral,  but  he  took  us  through 
the  worshipers,  to  look  at  the  different  wonders,  and 
the  worshipers  didn't  seem  to  mind  it,  or  pay  any  at- 
tention to  us.  Occasionally  we  stopped,  afraid  to  go 


448  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

on,  but  the  old  guide  motioned  for  us  to  come  on,  and 
we  walked  among  kneeling  women  to  join  our  conduc- 
tor. There  were  several  chapels  in  the  place,  all  of 
which  were  shown  us,  but  the  big  service  finally  be- 
came so  interesting  that  we  spent  a  quarter  of  an  hour 
in  witnessing  it.  We  saw  many  very  old  priests  in 
the  enormous  building,  and  our  guide  seemed  to  know 
all  of  them;  indeed,  he  seemed  to  know  everybody 
everywhere,  and  to  be  universally  respected.  There 
were  certain  valuable  relics  and  jewels  belonging  to  the 
cathedral.  In  order  to  see  these  the  guide  conducted 
us  into  apartments  which  seemed  to  be  private,  and 
occupied  by  a  considerable  number  of  clericals.  The 
guide  knew  all  these  men,  and  they  bowed  to  him  re- 
spectfully. .  .  .  Then  he  took  us  to  the  private 
grounds  of  a  count.  The  gatekeeper  saluted  our  old 
guide  with  great  respect,  and,  as  we  strolled  about  the 
grounds,  the  guide  was  at  liberty  to  pick  fruits  and 
flowers  for  Adelaide.  He  next  took  us  to  a  very  old 
church,  where  we  saw  a  quaint  lot  of  monks.  These 
queer  men  knew  our  guide,  too,  and  he  took  snuff  with 
one  of  them  who  opened  a  door  to  what  seemed  to  be 
subterranean  vaults  of  some  kind.  We  walked  down 
several  long  flights  of  steps,  and  entered  a 'place  where 
thousands  of  dead  bodies  were  displayed.  Many  of 
the  bodies  were  in  coffins  with  glass  tops  or  sides,  but 
most  of  them  were  fastened  against  the  stone  walls. 
The  guide  said  the  bodies  were  buried  for  a  year  or 
two,  and  then  taken  up,  and  displayed  in  this  queer 
way.  There  was  nothing  offensive  about  the  place, 
except  as  thousands  of  grinning  skulls  are  offensive. 
The  guide  did  not  know  how  many  bodies  were  dig- 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          449 

played  in  the  place,  but  I  should  say  the  number  was 
far  above  ten  thousand.  Some  of  the  bodies  were  of 
infants,  some  of  old  men,  some  of  young  girls,  some  of 
priests.  I  had  never  before  seen  anything  like  it,  nor 
did  I  know  any  such  thing  existed  in  Palermo  or  else- 
where. .  .  .  Then  we  went  to  the  royal  palace, 
built  in  1132,  atid  which  is  occupied  once  or  twice  in  a 
decade  by  the  King  of  Italy  and  his  family.  We  went 
into  the  private  rooms  of  the  king  and  queen,  and  saw 
their  beds,  and  their  baths ;  we  saw  the  kitchen,  and 
dining-room,  as  well  as  the  state  apartments.  And 
all  the  palace  attendants  were  very  respectful  to  our 
old  guide ;  he  was  permitted  to  roam  about  with  us 
without  restraint.  Once,  when  he  wanted  to  show  us 
a  certain  apartment,  he  took  a  key  out  of  a  private 
drawer,  and  we  walked  a  long  way  down  one  of  the 
battlements  to  a  tower  where  the  room  was.  .  .  . 
But  the  best  thing  we  saw  during  the  day  was  the  chapel 
of  the  old  palace.  It  was  a  wonderful  piece  of  art 
work,  the  entire  interior  being  covered  with  valuable 
paintings  and  more  valuable  mosaic  work.  This  chapel 
was  in  the  class  of  the  wonders  to  be  seen  in  India. 
We  visited  it  twice,  and  both  times  services  were  in 
progress.  As  we  had  done  at  the  cathedral,  the  guide 
conducted  us  among  the  kneeling  worshipers,  and  he 
knew  every  priest  and  monk  he  encountered,  and  they 
all  spoke  to  him  respectfully.  I  don't  believe  I  have 
ever  seen  anything  that  attracted  me  more  than  this 
chapel,  built  in  the  eleventh  century.  The  interior  is 
of  marble,  and  the  decorations  of  mosaic  work  laid  in 
designs  cut  in  the  marble.  .  .  .  At  1  P.  M.  we 
rested  at  a  little  hotel  on  the  side  of  the  mountain  over- 


450  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

looking  Palermo.  The  old  guide  knew  the  proprietor, 
who  waited  on  us  himself,  and  tried  hard  to  give  sat- 
isfaction. We  had  macaroni  cooked  in  Italian  style, 
fish,  wine,  and  quite  a  hearty  lunch,  but  the  charge 
for  four  of  us — including  the  guide  and  driver — was  a 
little  less  than  $1.40.  Then  we  went  on  up  the  moun- 
tain to  a  wonderful  old  church  in  a  wonderful  old  town, 
the  name  of  which  I  have  forgotten.  It  was  a  feast 
day  of  some  kind,  and  a  great  celebration  was  being 
held  in  the  wonderful  old  town.  The  streets  were 
packed  with  the  merrymakers,  and  all  sorts  of  hawkers 
were  selling  all  sorts  of  articles  that  were  queer  to  us. 
On  our  way  down  the  mountain  we  saw  a  wonderful 
valley  devoted  to  lemon  orchards.  The  owner  of  one 
of  these  orchards  lived  several  years  in  St.  Louis,  and, 
knowing  we  were  Americans,  invited  us  to  see  his  lemon 
crop.  The  lemons  were  just  ready  to  pick,  and  the 
yield  was  very  good,  apparently.  The  proprietor  told 
me  he  had  twelve  acres ;  that  the  land  was  worth  $1,000 
an  acre;  and  that  all  of  his  lemons  were  shipped  to 
the  United  States.  He  was  much  interested  in  a  rumor 
that  the  new  president,  Mr.  Wilson,  would  remove  the 
duty  on  lemons,  but  I  was  compelled  to  confess  I  did 
not  know  anything  about  it.  As  it  was  Sun4ay,  all  of 
the  farmer's  family,  including  his  wife  and  children, 
and  hired  men  followed  us  about.  There  were  two 
boys  in  the  family,  and  they  climbed  trees,  and  loaded 
Adelaide  down  with  various  kinds  of  fruit.  The  lemon 
orchard,  I  noticed,  is  irrigated,  but  neither  the  pro- 
prietor nor  the  guide  could  tell  me  where  the  water 
came  from.  Usually  it  Gome's  from  wells,  and  is  raised 
with  sweeps  turned  by  donkeys  and  horses.  .  .  .  We 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          451 

returned  to  the  docks  at  5 : 10  P.  M.,  after  eight  very 
delightful  hours  in  Palermo.  The  boatman  was  wait- 
ing, and  the  old  guide  went  aboard  with  us,  carrying 
Adelaide's  great  collection  of  fruits  and  flowers.  Dur- 
ing our  absence  we  had  taken  on  six  hundred  more 
steerage  passengers,  and  their  friends  surrounded  the 
ship,  in  boats.  In  half  an  hour  the  big  ship  backed 
out  of  the  harbor,  and  pointed  its  nose  for  New  York. 


MONDAY,  MAY  5. — I  think  every  man  believes  his 
"luck"  is  atrocious,  and  that  he  rarely  gets  an  "even 
break."  But  I  am  perfectly  satisfied  with  what  they 
have  done  to  me  on  the  "Canada."  It  is  a  new  ship 
of  fourteen  thousand  tons,  and  there  are  only  fifty  pas- 
sengers in  the  first  cabin.  As  a  result,  we  have  plenty 
of  room,  and  the  officers  give  us  whatever  we  want.  I 
have  a  room  to  myself  on  the  best  deck,  and  Adelaide 
has  another  just  like  it  next  door.  Between  our  rooms 
there  is  a  private  bath,  which  has  been  turned  over 
to  us  for  good  measure.  On  most  ships  the  beds  are 
hard.  On  the  "Canada,"  our  beds  are  provided  with 
springs,  and  we  have  real  bedsteads.  I  have  two  win- 
dows in  my  room,  and  Adelaide  has  two  in  hers ;  our 
bath-room  is  as  big  as  a  stateroom,  and  is  provided 
with  a  shower-bath,  in  addition  to  the  usual  tub.  .  .  . 
In  the  dining-room,  we  have  a  table  to  ourselves;  a 
small  table  for  two,  with  a  side  electric  light,  in  addi- 
tion to  the  ceiling  lights.  On  our  table  twice  a  day 
are  quart  bottles  of  red  and  white  wine,  always  full. 
This  wine  is  free;  it  is  a  feature  of  all  French  boats, 


452  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

The  cooking  is  the  best  I  have  ever  enjoyed  on  a  steam- 
ship or  hotel,  and  the  attendance  perfect.  Our  waiter 
is  a  Frenchman  who  speaks  almost  no  English,  but  the 
chief  steward  (a  German,  by-the-way)  speaks  English, 
and  sees  that  we  are  not  neglected.  The  meals  are 
French,  except  that  we  have  an  English  breakfast; 
which  means  that  we  have  eggs,  chops,  fish,  bacon, 
etc.  On  the  continent,  breakfast  almost  univer- 
sally consists  of  coffee,  bread  and  butter,  and  jam.  At 
the  fine  Hotel  Vesuve,  in  Naples,  we  had  this  sort  of 
breakfast,  although  we  could  have  eggs  if  we  called  for 
them.  In  Paris  it  is  almost  impossible  to  get  anything 
to  eat  before  noon,  except  at  hotels  patronized  by 
Americans  and  English.  .  .  .  Our  rooms  are  in 
charge  of  a  woman;  we  see  a  man  in  overalls  occa- 
sionally, but  the  woman  is  in  charge.  On  German 
ships,  the  dining-room  stewards  not  only  care  for  the 
rooms,  but  play  in  the  band;  on  the  "Canada," 
waiters  in  the  dining-room  have  nothing  to  do  with  the 
sleeping-rooms.  .  .  .  The  first-class  passengers  have 
two  big  decks.  In  the  rear  of  the  upper  deck  is  a 
handsome  smoking-room.  At  the  rear  of  the  next  deck 
below,  the  deck  on  which  our  rooms  are  located,  is  a 
music-room.  At  the  other  end  of  the  deck  is  a  writing- 
room.  Just  below  the  writing-room,  and  reached  by  a 
grand  stairway,  is  the  dining-room.  All  these  rooms 
are  very  handsome,  as  the  ship  is  less  than  a  year  old. 
.  .  .  What  do  we  pay  for  all  this  luxury  and  mag- 
nificence? Less  per  day  than  we  paid  on  the  "Maun- 
ganui,"  between  Wellington  and  Sydney,  where  I 
shared  a  room  9x10  with  three  others.  Adelaide 
shared  a  room  of  similar  size  on  the  "Maunganui" 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          453 

with  three  other  women.  The  "  Maunganui"  was  a 
favorite;  the  "Canada"  is  a  new  and  unknown  ship 
struggling  for  recognition  from  the  traveling  public. 
Moral :  Keep  away  from  favorites ;  they  will  always 
impose  on  you.  .  .  .  Another  pleasant  thing  about 
the  "Canada"  is  that  there  is  not  a  single  Englishman 
on  board.  There  is  no  Sports  Committee,  no  loud 
talk,  and  no  noise.  About  half  the  first-cabin  passen- 
gers are  Americans,  and  they  are  so  well-behaved  that 
I  am  proud  of  them.  The  others  are  French  and  Ital- 
ian, and  they  are  also  quiet  and  modest.  .  .  .  When 
we  look  down  on  the  lower  decks,  we  see  a  seething 
mass  of  humanity:  Italian  and  Sicilian  emigrants. 
Fortunately  the  weather  is  fine,  and  most  of  them  are 
on  deck ;  only  a  few  of  them  are  seasick.  Some  peo- 
ple can't  go  on  a  millpond  without  becoming  sick,  and 
we  have  a  few  of  this  sort  in  the  first  cabin.  The  three 
or  four  hundred  passengers  in  the  second  cabin  we 
cannot  see,  as  they  are  on  a  deck  under  ours.  .  .  . 
This  morning  I  saw  four  barbers  at  work  among  the 
emigrants ;  barbers  who  are  going  to  the  United  States 
to  work  at  their  trade.  The  barbers  charge  four  cents 
for  shaving,  and  six  cents  for  hair-cutting.  The  barber 
in  the  first  cabin  charges  only  fifteen  cents  for  a  shave, 
and  he  is  a  good  workman.  The  emigrants  eat  on 
deck,  now  that  the  weather  is  fine.  Each  one  seems 
to  get  a  loaf  of  bread,  and  a  bucket  containing  soup 
and  meat.  A  cheap  wine  is  also  given  them ;  also 
macaroni.  They  are  well  treated,  as  the  Italian  gov- 
ernment has  a  commissioner  on  board  to  look  after 
their  interests.  This  commissioner  sits  on  the  captain's 
right  in  the  dining-room,  and  has  one  of  the  best  rooms 


454  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

on  the  ship.  .  .  .  The  emigrants  are  all  poor  peo- 
ple, but  very  wasteful,  now  that  they  have  plenty. 
Every  day  enough  bread  is  wasted  on  their  deck  to 
feed  dozens  of  people,  and  this  is  swept  up  and  thrown 
overboard  by  the  sailors.  .  .  .  These  emigrants 
are  objectionable,  in  one  way.  In  case  of  a  panic,  we 
would  all  go  to  the  bottom.  Nothing  could  control 
them,  and  we  haven't  enough  boats  to  float  twenty- 
five  hundred  people,  even  if  order  were  maintained. 
But  the  "Princess  Irene,"  the  favorite,  is  carrying 
even  more  emigrants  than  the  "Canada."  I  have 
never  before  been  on  a  ship  where  the  decks  were 
black  with  emigrants;  there  are  a  few  hundred  on 
nearly  every  ship,  but  the  crowd  on  the  "Canada" 
frightens  me. 


TUESDAY,  MAY  6. — The  weather  remains  fine,  and 
the  sea  is  as  smooth  as  we  found  it  in  the  Red  Sea,  or 
on  the  east  coast  of  Africa.  The  Mediterranean  nar- 
rows up  at  its  western  end,  as  we  approach  Gibraltar, 
and  becomes  a  great  harbor.  At  six  o'clock  this  even- 
ing we  were  within  a  few  hundred  yards  of  the  moun- 
tainous coast  of  Spain.  The  Mediterranean  being  nar- 
row at  this  point,  we  are  seeing  many  ships:  seven 
were  in  sight  at  one  time  this  evening. 


WEDNESDAY,   MAY  7. — At  4 : 30  this  morning,   a 
steward  knocked  on  my  door,  and  said : 
"Gibraltar." 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          455 

I  climbed  out  of  bed,  hurried  into  a  little  clothing, 
and  went  on  deck.  Daylight  was  faintly  appearing. 
On  the  right,  two  or  three  hundred  yards  away,  was  the 
rock  of  Gibraltar,  where  the  English  have  a  huge 
fortification  which  is  said  to  be  so  old  as  to  be  a  joke. 
No  one  is  allowed  in  the  fortification,  but  it  is  common 
report  that  the  big  guns  are  so  old  and  rusty  that  it 
would  be  dangerous  to  fire  them.  The  rock  of  Gibral- 
tar is  an  island,  and  puts  out  into  the  sea.  Behind  it 
is  the  town  of  the  same  name ;  a  place  as  big  as  Atchi- 
son.  The  picture  of  Gibraltar  shown  in  advertise- 
ments of  the  Prudential  Life  Insurance  Company  looks 
exactly  like  it,  except  that  the  bay  and  town  behind 
the  rock  are  not  shown  accurately.  Half-way  up  the 
rock  of  Gibraltar  was  a  light,  and  a  long  shelf ;  I  sup- 
pose the  shelf  is  a  part  of  the  fortification.  In  the  town 
were  occasional  clusters  of  electric  lights,  as  may  be 
seen  in  any  modern  town  just  as  daylight  is  appearing, 
and  I  could  see  a  lighthouse  on  the  African  shore  off 
to  the  left.  Creeping  through  the  straits  were  a  num- 
ber of  ships,  one  of  them  within  two  or  three  hundred 
feet  of  the  "Canada."  Then  I  went  back  to  bed.  I 
aroused  Adelaide,  and  told  her  of  the  sight  on  the  oppo- 
site side  of  the  ship,  but  she  concluded  not  to  get  up. 
.  .  .  Soon  after  breakfast,  we  passed  Tangier,  and 
left  Africa  for  good.  We  have  been  in  sight  of  Africa 
almost  constantly  since  March  2,  when  we  landed  at 
Durban.  During  the  twenty-four  days  we  were  on 
the  "Burgermeister,"  we  were  out  of  sight  of  it  a  few 
days  after  leaving  Port  Said,  but  this  morning  we  saw 
the  African  continent  again,  at  its  northwestern  end, 
at  Tangier,  in  Morocco.  ...  An  hour  later,  we 


456  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

were  out  of  sight  of  land  in  the  Atlantic  ocean,  which 
Adelaide  had  been  afraid  of,  but  there  was  little  mo- 
tion, and  the  weather  was  warmer  and  brighter  than 
it  has  been  since  leaving  Port  Said.  The  barber,  when 
he  shaved  me  this  morning,  predicted  rough  weather 
when  we  get  behind  the  Azores,  but  certainly  we  are 
having  beautiful  weather  now,  and  have  had  it  con- 
tinuously for  thirty-two  days.  .  .  .  There  is  an 
American  on  board  who  said  to  me  this  morning:  "I 
shall  never  travel  at  sea  again.  Wherever  you  go  by 
ship,  travel  is  rendered  disagreeable  by  the  English. 
The  English  are  intensely  disagreeable  to  me,  and  in 
future  I  shall  keep  away  from  them.  They  are  the 
most  impolite  people  in  the  world,  and  do  not  realize 
that  everything  English  is  not  perfect.  They  pro- 
nounce words  wrong,  and  regard  you  with  pity  if  you 
pronounce  the  same  words  correctly.  The  English 
are  headed  for  a  big  tumble.  You  and  I  will  not  live 
to  see  it,  but  Canada  and  Australia  will  throw  off  the 
English  yoke.  That  will  encourage  India,  and  Africa, 
and  many  other  countries,  to  do  the  same  thing.  Eng- 
land is  seeing  its  best  days  right  now ;  let  the  English- 
men swagger  while  they  may.  The  English  remind 
me  of  a  big  trust :  they  paid  too  much  for  their  various 
possessions,  and  are  bound  to  'bust.' '  ...  I  do 
not  feel  that  bad  about  the  English,  but  I  certainly  re- 
mark that  the  "Canada"  is  much  quieter  than  it  would 
be  were  a  majority  of  the  passengers  sons  of  John  Bull. 
So  far,  I  have  not  seen  a  single  passenger  running 
around  in  pajamas. 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          457 

THURSDAY,  MAY  8. — Our  magnificent  French  cook 
had  macaroni  for  dinner  today,  and,  while  I  liked  it 
better  than  the  Italian  way  of  preparing  it,  I  did  not 
like  it  so  well  as  the  American  way.  Italian  macaroni 
did  not  please  my  taste.  It  was  not  cooked  enough, 
to  begin  with,  and  had  the  tomato  sauce  baked  into 
it.  It  is  a  sight  to  see  Italians  eat  macaroni.  It  is 
cooked  in  long  strings,  and  the  Italians  poke  it  into 
their  mouths  in  a  fashion  that  is  not  at  all  pleasing. 
.  .  .  Six  whales  were  in  sight  at  one  time  this  after- 
noon, and  probably  there  were  many  more  in  the  school 
we  did  not  see.  An  hour  later,  we  ran  into  the  biggest 
lot  of  porpoises  I  have  ever  seen.  They  were  quite 
close  to  the  ship,  on  both  sides  of  it,  and  seemed  to  be 
following  us.  A  porpoise  looks  like  a  fish  weighing 
twenty-five  to  forty  pounds,  and  leaps  entirely  out  of 
the  Water  when  in  a  sportive  mood.  Jumping  out  of 
the  water  is  probably  a  fish's  method  of  taking  a  bath. 
.  .  .  We  have  our  chairs  on  the  upper  or  hurricane 
deck,  and,  when  we  take  a  walk,  pass  the  wireless  room, 
where  an  operator  sits  all  day  and  night  with  receivers 
at  his  ears,  to  catch  any  call  that  may  be  in  the  air. 
When  the  operator  reads,  he  has  the  receivers  fastened 
to  his  ears,  and  I  have  seen  him  eating  dinner  in  his 
room  when  rigged  up  in  the  same  queer  way.  .  .  . 
A  dove  has  been  following  the  ship  several  days.  It 
is  very  tired,  and  this  morning  I  saw  it  attempt  to 
light  on  the  waves;  then  it  fluttered  up  into  the  rig- 
ging, and  rested  there  awhile.  .  .  .  Near  the  en- 
trance to  the  dining-room  there  is  a  notice  in  French 
and  English.  Among  other  things,  it  says  the  man- 
agement will  appreciate  the  courtesy  if  passengers 


458  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

dress  for  luncheon  and  dinner.  We  are  wondering 
what  a  proper  dress  for  luncheon  is.  The  rules  also 
say  that  dogs  are  not  allowed  on  board,  but  one  has 
the  run  of  the  ship ;  and,  since  he  is  the  only  nuisance 
on  board,  we  wonder  that  the  officers  stand  for  it.  I 
never  cared  much  for  those  who  go  crazy  about  dogs. 
Senator  Vest,  of  Missouri,  once  wrote  a  false  and  senti- 
mental tribute  to  dogs,  and  the  Dog  People  were  so 
much  encouraged  by  it  that  they  are  very  pronounced 
nuisances  everywhere.  No  one  has  a  right  to  keep  a 
dog  that  is  a  nuisance  to  others;  whoever  does  not 
know  this  is  unfair  and  impolite  in  other  ways.  .  .  . 
The  big  ship  "Canada"  is  doing  a  very  fair  job  of 
pitching  this  afternoon,  but  we  have  been  at  sea  so 
long  that  we  do  not  mind  it.  There  is  a  noticeable 
thinning-out  on  the  steerage  deck.  So  far,  we  have 
been  at  sea  fifty-three  days  since  leaving  San  Fran- 
cisco, and  have  been  seasick  only  four  or  five  days. 
We  were  sick  three  days  on  the  Pacific,  and  two  between 
Australia  and  New  Zealand,  but  during  the  last  forty- 
seven  days  at  sea  we  have  experienced  no  inconvenience. 
I  sleep  at  night  as  I  never  slept  before  in  my  life; 
there  is  just  enough  motion  to  rock  me  to  sleep.  .  .  . 
In  Italy,  a  traveler  from  the  United  States  wonders  at 
the  general  use  of  wine.  All  classes  drink  it,  and  it  is 
very  cheap ;  I  bought  a  bottle  of  very  good  wine  in 
Naples  for  six  cents.  The  poor  people  use  it  instead 
of  gravy  or  milk ;  on  the  ship,  I  see  emigrants  soaking 
their  bread  in  wine.  Every  vacant  plot  of  ground  in 
Naples  is  devoted  to  grapes  and  vegetables.  In  the 
heart  of  the  town,  wherever  you  find  a  vacant  lot,  you 
find  a  garden.  I  have  never  seen  anything  growing  in 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.         459 

Italy  except  vegetables  and  fruit ;  I  wonder  where  the 
wheat  comes  from  with  which  they  make  macaroni? 
The  Italians  say  American  flour  makes  better  bread 
than  the  Italian  flour,  but  inferior  macaroni.  The 
Italians  are  poor,  as  a  rule,  but  nearly  all  of  them  are 
fat ;  particularly  the  women.  The  poor  people  of  It- 
aly do  not  eat  meat  once  a  week ;  the  Italian  emigrants 
on  the  ship  get  it  twice  a  day.  But  they  are  very  waste- 
ful of  it,  and  complain  as  much  as  though  they  had 
always  been  accustomed  to  the  very  best.  One  of  the 
officers  says  that  on  the  last  trip,  the  ship  was  compelled 
to  bring  back  twenty-two  emigrants  who  failed  to  pass 
the  examination  in  New  York.  The  charge  against 
one  man  was  that  he  had  been  a  professional  beggar. 
This  man  made  a  great  deal  of  trouble  during  the  voy- 
age to  New  York;  he  was  always  finding  fault  with 
the  food,  although  it  was  abundant.  I  asked  the  officer 
why  the  ship  gave  the  emigrants  so  much  food  that 
they  threw  it  overboard ;  his  reply  was  that  the  Italian 
commissioner  on  board  insisted  on  a  liberal  supply, 
and  the  captain  was  at  his  mercy.  The  emigrants  are 
pretty  well  crowded  in  their  sleeping  quarters;  one 
hundred  and  fifty  men  sleep  in  one  room,  in  a  bed 
which  runs  up  in  broad  tiers.  If  the  owners  of  the 
English  ships  running  between  Australia  and  New  Zea- 
land ever  hear  of  this,  they  will  die  of  mortification 
because  of  their  moderation  in  putting  only  four  in  a 
room.  .  .  .  We  had  a  moving-picture  show  last 
night,  with  the  explanatory  lecture  in  French.  .  .  . 
The  barber  who  shaves  me  every  morning  says  he  has 
been  going  to  sea  a  good  many  years,  but  never  started 
on  a  voyage  on  Friday;  that  a  ship  never  leaves  its 


460  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

initial  port  on  Friday.  The  barber  is  mistaken.  For 
thirty  years  or  more,  the  P.  &  O.  line  has  sent  a  ship 
out  of  London  every  Friday.  Nine-tenths  of  all  you 
hear  is  untrue.  The  barber  also  says  that  the  famous 
expression,  "See  Naples  and  die,"  is  founded  on  a 
play  on  words.  In  the  bay  of  Naples  there  is  an  island 
called  Morreai,  which  in  Italian,  means  something  con- 
nected with  death.  The  original  saying  was,  "See 
Naples  and  Morreai,"  but  in  a  spirit  of  levity  the  Eng- 
lish translated  the  saying,  "See  Naples  and  die." 


FRIDAY,  MAY  9. — This  afternoon  we  passed  the 
"Lusiana,"  an  Italian  emigrant  ship  also  bound  for 
New  York.  The  "Lusiana"  left  Naples  a  day  before 
we  did,  but  it  is  slow,  and  we  overhauled  it.  We  passed 
it  within  a  hundred  yards,  and  marveled  at  the  manner 
in  which  it  pitched  and  rolled;  probably  the  big 
"Canada"  was  cutting  up  in  a  similar  manner,  viewed 
from  the  decks  of  the  "Lusiana,"  which  were  black 
with  emigrants.  The  emigrants  did  a  good  deal  of 
cheering  as  we  passed.  .  .  .  The  "Canada"  is  also 
a  faster  ship  than  the  "Princess  Irene,"  the  favorite, 
and  we  are  hoping  that  we  may  overtake  it,  and  jeer 
at  the  passengers.  The  "Princess  Irene"  had  a  start 
of  nearly  twenty-four  hours,  as  it  did  not  stop  at  Pa- 
lermo. .  .  .  By-the-way,  as  we  left  the  "  Lusiana" 
behind,  I  caught  the  geographies  in  a  ridiculous  error. 
They  all  say  that  at  sea,  the  last  sight  of  a  disappearing 
vessel  is  the  top  of  its  masts ;  which  proves,  the  geog- 
raphies say,  that  the  world  is  round.  The  curvature 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          461 

of  the  earth  is  something  like  an  inch  to  the  mile,  so 
that  the  funnels  of  a  ship  would  not  disappear  under 
five  hundred  miles,  if  one  could  see  that  far.  Three 
hours  after  we  passed  the  "Lusiana,"  it  was  a  mere 
speck  on  the  horizon,  but  we  could  plainly  see  its  hull. 
After  it  had  entirely  disappeared  from  view  by  the 
naked  eye,  we  could  see  its  hull  with  the  aid  of  glasses. 
The  ships  were  probably  fifteen  miles  apart  when  we 
finally  lost  sight  of  the  "Lusiana,"  and  the  difference 
between  them,  in  the  curvature  of  the  earth,  did  not 
exceed  fifteen  inches.  .  .  .  The  hull  of  the  "Canada" 
is  white,  and  it  must  have  presented  a  very  pretty 
sight  to  the  passengers  on  the  "Lusiana,"  who  were  all 
of  one  class :  emigrants.  But  down  below,  the  "Can- 
ada" is  probably  a  little  untidy.  Everything  below 
its  two  top  decks  is  crowded  with  emigrants,  and  they 
are  not  very  clean.  In  the  evening,  they  sing  a  great 
deal;  a  trombone-player,  en  route  to  New  York  to 
join  an  Italian  band,  leads  with  his  instrument.  Among 
the  first-class  passengers  is  an  Italian  opera-singer  who 
is  about  as  good  as  any  of  the  second-rate  tenors  at 
the  Metropolitan  Opera  House,  and  he  sings  every 
evening.  ...  Nearly  all  the  emigrants  seem  to 
wear  home-made  socks  and  shoes.  Most  of  them  are 
young  men ;  I  doubt  if  there  are  two  hundred  women 
in  the  entire  lot.  Many  of  them  have  been  over  be- 
fore, and  will  return  home  when  outdoor  work  ceases 
next  winter,  as  the  price  of  the  passage  is  only  $25. 
The  weather  is  chilly,  and  the  emigrants  sit  on  deck 
wrapped  in  blankets  furnished  them  by  the  steamship 
company.  In  addition  to  a  blanket,  each  is  given  a 
sack  stuffed  with  straw,  and  on  these  they  sleep. 


462  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

Nearly  all  of  them  eat  in  groups  on  deck,  and  this 
morning  I  saw  them  pouring  olive  oil  into  tin  cups 
containing  either  coffee  and  bread,  or  wine  and  bread, 
I  could  not  tell  which.  ...  I  write  this  at  a  table 
in  a  little  alcove  on  deck,  and  the  screaming  of  the 
emigrants  as  they  excitedly  talk  to  each  other  amounts 
to  a  roar.  This  noise  is  in  my  ears  continuously,  ex- 
cept when  I  go  to  my  room,  which  is  amidships,  and 
far  removed  from  the  emigrant  decks  forward  and  aft. 
.  .  .  The  cooking  on  the  ship  continues  to  astonish 
us,  it  is  so  excellent.  So  far,  we  have  not  had  a  dish 
duplicated  at  lunch  or  dinner.  You  would  think  any- 
one could  scramble  eggs;  it  may  be  difficult  to  un- 
scramble them,  as  the  late  J.  P.  Morgan  once  observed, 
but  there  should  be  little  difference  in  the  process  of 
scrambling  them.  I  am  fond  of  scrambled  eggs,  and 
have  been  eating  them  all  my  life,  but  the  manner  in 
which  they  are  prepared  in  the  "Canada's"  kitchen  is 
new  and  delightful.  This  morning  I  asked  the  chief 
steward  to  take  Adelaide  into  the  kitchen,  to  learn 
the  chef's  secret  of  scrambling  eggs.  Adelaide  says 
one  secret  of  his  delicious  cooking  is  that  everything 
is  reeking  in  butter.  It  is  possible  that  a  German  or 
English  crew  would  suit  me  better  than  the  French 
crew  of  the  "Canada,"  when  it  comes  to  the  general 
work  of  the  ship,  but  the  kitchen  and  dining-room,  and 
sleeping-rooms,  are  better  managed  on  this  ship  than 
on  any  other  with  which  I  have  been  familiar  on  two 
voyages  around  the  world,  and  three  shorter  trips  by 
sea.  I  do  not  want  any  better  accommodations  than 
I  have  on  the  "Canada."  .  .  .  Much  as  I  admire 
the  Germans,  I  cannot  help  noting  that  their  language 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          463 

does  not  sound  as  well  as  French  or  Italian.  To  a 
man  who  does  not  understand  languages,  the  German 
sounds  worst  of  all,  unless  it  is  the  Russian.  On  the 
"Burgenneister,"  where  we  heard  German  constantly 
for  more  than  three  weeks,  we  used  to  laugh  at  its 
funny  sounds.  I  know  of  no  uglier  sounding  word  than 
the  German  word  "yaw,"  which  means  "yes."  If  I 
were  a  young  man,  and  should  propose  to  a  young  and 
beautiful  German  girl,  and  she  should  reply  with  what 
poets  say  is  the  sweetest  of  all  words,  yaw,  I  should 
feel  disposed  to  run  away  to  South  America,  or  South 
Africa,  or  some  other  country  where  it  is  too  hot.  .  .  . 
I  have  never  known  anyone  to  struggle  quite  so  hard 
against  baldness  as  the  barber  on  the  "Canada." 
When  his  hair  is  in  order,  it  looks  all  right,  but  the 
other  morning,  while  I  was  being  shaved,  the  window 
blew  open,  and  the  barber's  hair  went  to  pieces.  He 
is  bald,  but  has  cultivated  a- lot  of  long  hair  on  the  side 
of  his  head  which  he  combs  over  his  baldness.  The 
wind  threw  this  long  hair  out  of  place,  and  as  it  napped 
around,  the  barber  was  as  flustrated  as  an  old  maid 
suddenly  discovered  in  her  night-gown.  .  .  .  Speak- 
ing of  the  barber  reminds  me  that  he  says  all  the  officers 
of  the  "Canada,"  except  the  captain,  wanted  more  pay, 
a  few  months  ago,  and  walked  out  just  before  the  ship 
was  to  sail  from  Marseilles.  The  ship  had  a  big  lot 
of  passengers  aboard,  but  the  general  manager  was 
stubborn,  and  he  fooled  around  for  a  week  before  he 
could  find  another  set  of  officers.  .  .  .  We  hear  on 
the  upper  deck  that  the  six  hundred  Sicilians  among 
the  emigrants  are  not  as  good  workers  as  the  fourteen 
hundred  Italians;  and  that  in  addition  to  being 


464   '.        TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

lazy,  the  Sicilians  use  a  knife  with  very  little  provoca- 
tion. In  Sicily,  you  hear  a  great  deal  of  the  vendetta, 
wherein  a  man  will  knife  another  man  who  is  a  second 
cousin  to  an  enemy.  .  .  .  This  morning  we  passed 
the  Azore  islands,  where  Columbus  stopped  on  his 
famous  voyage.  Usually  the  "Canada"  passes  be- 
tween the  islands,  and  quite  close  to  shore,  but  owing 
to  rain  and  mist  we  passed  on  the  longer,  and  safer 
course. 


SATURDAY,  MAY  10. — It  turned  out  just  as  the 
barber  predicted :  Behind  the  Azores  we  encountered 
rough  seas,  and  the  big  ship  "Canada"  has  been  jump- 
ing today  like  a  greyhound.  The  wind  is  blowing 
heavily,  and  there  is  an  occasional  shower  of  rain.  Af- 
ter every  shower,  there  is  a  rainbow ;  one  of  them  made 
a  bow  over  the  stern  of  the  ship,  and  followed  us  for 
fifteen  minutes.  We  were  late  for  breakfast  this  morn- 
ing, but  the  steward  said  we  were  the  first  ones  in,  and 
no  others  came  while  we  were  there.  We  have  suffered 
no  inconvenience  from  the  rough  weather,  except  that 
we  became  tired  of  bracing  ourselves.  The  sailors 
dislike  rough  weather;  they  do  not  become  seasick, 
but  rough  weather  at  sea  is  disagreeable,  as  it  is  on 
land,  and  results  in  gloomy  thoughts  and  bad  tempers. 
Rough  weather  rolls  you  about  in  your  bed  at  night, 
and  the  most  experienced  sailor  cannot  sleep  as  well  as 
he  can  when  the  weather  is  good.  ...  I  have  fre- 
quently mentioned  the  barber.  On  every  ship,  the 
barber-shop  is  headquarters  for  news.  In  the  days 
before  newspapers,  people  went  to  the  barber-shops 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          465 

for  the  gossip  of  the  day.  The  "Canada's"  barber  is 
a  German,  but  speaks  French  and  English.  He  lived 
in  London  four  years,  and  told  me  today  that  he  found, 
after  learning  English  in  London,  that  Americans  could 
not  understand  him  very  well.  Which  corroborates 
my  statement  that  the  people  of  the  United  States  and 
the  English  do  not  speak  the  same  language.  .  .  . 
The  man  on  the  "Canada"  who  has  least  to  do  is  the 
barkeeper.  I  have  not  seen  a  single  drink  ordered  in 
the  dining-room.  On  the  "Burgermeister,"  nearly  ev- 
eryone ordered  something  from  the  bar  at  luncheon 
and  dinner,  and  paid  extra  for  it,  but  on  the  "Canada," 
two  kinds  of  wine  are  furnished  free.  The  profit  from 
liquor  on  the  German  ship  must  have  been  enormous. 
Two  kinds  of  keg  beer,  light  and  dark,  were  sold,  and 
nearly  everybody  drank  one  or  the  other.  The  weather 
was  very  warm  nearly  all  the  time  I  was  on  the  "Bur- 
germeister,"  and  the  cold  beer  was  particularly  agree- 
able. But  on  the  "Canada,"  I  have  not  seen  the  bar- 
keeper fill  a  half-dozen  orders.  The  weather  is  chilly, 
and  we  wear  our  heaviest  winter  clothing;  besides, 
there  is  no  German  beer  on  draught.  .  .  .  This  is 
the  sixth  day  out,  and  we  have  had  strawberries  every 
day.  It  is  surprising  how  fresh  and  palatable  the  cook 
manages  to  make  everything  taste.  We  are  paying 
about  seven  dollars  a  day  each  for  our  accommodations 
on  this  ship,  which  include  two  rooms  on  the  best  deck, 
a  private  bath,  three  of  the  best  meals  I  have  ever 
eaten,  and  bouillon  at  11  A.  M.,  and  tea  at  4  p.  M.  We 
would  be  charged  about  the  same  price  in  the  second 
class  on  the  big  Atlantic  liners.  The  "Canada"  is  a 
new  ship,  working  for  a  reputation;  that  is  the  only 


466  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

explanation  I  know  of.  Anyone  going  abroad,  by  tak- 
ing this  line,  sees  Palermo,  in  Sicily,  and  Naples,  in 
Italy,  on  the  way,  landing  finally  at  Marseilles,  in 
France.  Some  of  the  other  ships  of  the  line  stop  at 
Lisbon,  in  Portugal,  and  at  the  Azores,  also.  .  .  . 
You  can  pay  almost  any  price  for  accommodations  at 
sea.  It  is  said  John  Jacob  Astor  paid  $5,000  for  ac- 
commodations on  the  "Titanic,"  and  the  management 
didn't  do  a  thing  but  drown  him.  He  had  three  or 
four  rooms,  two  baths,  a  private  dining-room,  etc. 
Speaking  of  J.  J.  Astor  reminds  me  that  he  made  finan- 
cial mistakes,  as  well  as  the  rest  of  us.  In  closing  up 
his  estate  it  was  found  that  he  had  ten  million  dollars 
worth  of  securities  which  were  practically  worthless. 
But  Astor  could  drive  a  hard  bargain,  on  occasion. 
He  once  found  a  man  who  was  hard  up,  and  who  wanted 
to  sell  a  yacht  which  cost  half  a  million  dollars.  The 
yacht  was  new,  and  the  man  thought  he  ought  to  have 
$450,000  for  it.  But  Astor  finally  got  it  for  $90,000. 
,  ,  .  There  is  a  man  on  board  who  is  the  best  news- 
paper scholar  I  have  ever  known.  He  is  familiar  with 
everything  that  has  appeared  in  the  newspapers  for  the 
past  twenty  or  thirty  years.  I  have  posted  myself  on 
the  news  of  the  past  five  months  by  talking  to  him.  He 
is  very  entertaining,  and  quite  modest ;  he  frequently 
says :  "I  know  nothing  about  it  myself;  I  only  know 
what  I  read  in  the  newspapers."  I  have  never  before 
known  a  man  quite  like  him.  .  .  .  We  have  dinner 
at  6:30  on  the  "Canada,"  but  the  passengers  never 
come  into  the  dining-room  until  a  quarter  of  an  hour 
later,  when  the  table  d'hote  dinner  begins.  At  the 
fine  Hotel  Vesuve,  in  Naples,  the  dinner  hour  was 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          467 

7  :  30,  but  the  guests  were  always  a  quarter  of  an  hour 
late.  .  .  .  Our  guide  in  Naples  was  a  rather  sullen 
American,  and  we  learned  today  that  he  was  formerly 
a  very  rich  man.  His  father  died  seven  years  ago,  and 
left  him  a  fortune,  but  he  ran  through  with  it,  and  is 
now  a  guide,  at  $2  a  day.  He  spent  most  of  his  money 
in  Monte  Carlo,  at  the  gambling-tables.  This  informa- 
tion I  get  from  the  newspaper  scholar,  quoted  above, 
who  is  an  old  traveler.  He  says  he  knows  the  guide 
well,  but  refused  to  give  me  his  name.  I  have  the 
guide's  card,  but  the  newspaper  scholar  says  it  is  not 
his  real  name. 


SUNDAY,  MAY  11. — The  bad  weather  continues,  and 
we  cannot  take  our  usual  walks.  We  sit  in  a  protected 
place  on  the  upper  deck,  wrapped  in  rugs,  and  talk 
about  getting  home.  Adelaide  has  decided  that  she 
does  not  care  to  remain  in  New  York  long;  that  she 
wants  to  get  home  as  soon  as  possible ;  so  if  we  reach 
that  city  Thursday  night,  as  expected,  Friday  after- 
noon will  see  us  on  a  railroad  train  headed  westward. 
.  ,  .  While  on  the  Pacific  ocean,  I  met  a  life  insur- 
ance man  named  Adams,  who  told  me  that  he  traveled 
constantly,  and  that  his  expenses,  afloat  and  ashore, 
averaged  $11  a  day.  He  kept  no  expense  account,  he 
said ;  at  the  end  of  the  year  he  charged  the  company 
$11  a  day  for  expenses,  and  that  was  almost  exactly 
what  he  spent.  Today  I  made  a  calculation,  and 
found  that  the  present  trip  has  cost  us  $11  a  day  each, 
almost  to  a  penny.  So  if  you  want  to  know  what 
traveling  costs,  here  is  an  estimate  you  may  depend 


468  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

upon.  This  means  rapid  traveling,  by  railroad  and 
steamship,  and  sightseeing  in  the  towns  with  the  as- 
sistance of  a  guide.  The  estimate  includes  the  pur- 
chases a  traveler  is  compelled  to  make,  and  cannot  be 
reduced  much  unless  you  travel  second  class,  and  deny 
yourself  many  things.  At  Palermo,  we  hired  a  guide, 
and  drove  about  nearly  all  day  in  a  new  two-horse 
carriage,  with  liveried  driver.  The  expense  was  con- 
siderable, but  we  saw  dozens  of  things  that  those  who 
did  not  take  a  guide  and  carriage,  failed  to  see.  .  .  . 
A  stewardess  on  the  "Canada"  has  enormous  feet. 
She  is  rather  a  pretty  woman,  but  her  feet  are  much 
too  big.  Americans  have  smaller  feet  than  any  other 
race.  .  .  .  There  is  a  young  man  on  board  who 
has  a  tremendous  lot  of  hair,  which  he  never  combs. 
There  is  something  peculiar  about  him,  and  today  we 
found  out  what  it  is :  he  is  an  artist.  .  .  .  There 
is  a  woman  on  board  who  left  New  York  in  February, 
a  bride.  She  said  to  me  today:  "I'm  not  happy; 
but  I'm  as  happy  as  married  women  usually  are,  and 
am  content."  I've  been  thinking  about  the  statement, 
and  have  almost  concluded  that  she  is  a  smart  woman. 
Isn't  she  smarter  than  the  woman  who  marries,  ex- 
pects to  be  happy,  is  disappointed,  and  becomes  sour 
over  her  disappointment?  ...  I  see  that  Edward 
Bok,  editor  of  the  Ladies'  Home  Journal,  is  offering 
prizes  to  husbands  who  will  write  the  best  articles 
under  this  title :  "Why  I  Wanted  My  Wife  to  Become 
My  Wife."  The  prize  articles  will  be  written  by  senti- 
mentalists who  will  write,  not  the  truth,  but  what  the 
editor  wants.  The  husbands  who  know  the  truth 
about  marriage,  rarely  tell  it.  ...  A  man  on 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          469 

board  is  a  great  reader,  and  gets  a  new  book  out  of  the 
library  every  day.  He  sits  near  me  on  deck,  and  fre- 
quently criticises  the  authors  of  the  books  he  reads. 
Still,  it  is  easier  to  be  a  great  critic  than  it  is  to  be  a 
great  author.  .  .  .  This  man  knows  many  things 
I  never  heard  of.  He  says  he  once  knew  a  boy  only 
seven  years  old  who  was  an  ordained  preacher  in  the 
Methodist  church.  I  knew  better,  but  I  did  not  argue 
with  him.  I've  quit  arguing ;  I  hear  foolish  statements 
every  day  without  contradicting  them.  In  the  smok- 
ing-room today  I  heard  a  man  say  that  a  cardinal  in 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church  need  not  be  a  priest,  and 
that  a  cardinal  might  marry  if  he  chose.  Another  man 
said  Mark  Twain  was  once  a  preacher,  and  had  a  reg- 
ular charge. 


MONDAY,  MAY  12. — This  has  been  the  most  disa- 
greeable day  of  the  voyage.  The  wind  blew  a  hurricane, 
but  shifted  so  frequently  that  it  kept  the  sea  down, 
although  it  was  so  bad  that  most  of  the  passengers 
were  ill.  The  captain,  when  he  came  down  to  break- 
fast, said  to  the  few  present:  "I'm  sorry."  Meaning 
the  weather ;  he  had  promised  us  a  fine  voyage.  The 
captain  is  a  very  polite  man ;  when  he  comes  into  the 
dining-room,  in  the  morning,  he  speaks  to  most  of  the 
passengers,  and  goes  about  to  shake  hands  with  some 
of  them.  He  is  very  solicitous  of  those  who  are  ill, 
but  Captain  Trask,  of  the  American  ship  "Sonoma," 
thought  it  a  disgrace  to  be  seasick,  and  would  barely 
speak  to  any  of  his  passengers  so  afflicted.  He  used  to 
say  he  was  never  seasick  in  his  life,  and  that  seasick- 


470  TRAVEL  LETTERS 


ness  was  "just  a  notion."  .  .  Adelaide,  the  farmer's 
daughter,  does  not  mind  the  terrific  motion  of  the  ship, 
but  I  have  a  slight  headache,  and  do  not  care  to  eat 
much.  .  .  .  The  barber  says  conditions  down 
among  the  emigrants  are  bad.  Most  of  them  are  in 
bed,  in  rooms  containing  hundreds.  All  the  married 
couples  occupy  one  large  room,  and  sleep  in  their 
clothes.  The  unmarried  women  occupy  another  large 
room,  and  the  unmarried  men  another.  There  are 
tables  down  below,  where  the  emigrants  may  eat  their 
food,  but  they  eat  on  deck  when  the  weather  will  per- 
mit. For  breakfast  they  are  given  a  soup  thick  with 
vegetables,  and  coffee  ;  for  dinner  and  supper  they  have 
boiled  meat,  potatoes,  macaroni,  onions,  wine,  and 
bread.  They  are  given  so  much  to  eat  that  we  all 
note  the  manner  in  which  they  waste  it.  ...  Dur- 
ing the  worst  of  the  storm  today,  a  large  woman  sitting 
on  deck  attempted  to  go  below.  She  foolishly  at- 
tempted to  descend  an  open  stairway,  and  the  wind 
blew  her  skirts  over  her  head.  This  rendered  her  hys- 
terical, and  she  began  screaming.  Seven  stewards  were 
required  to  carry  her  to  her  room,  from  which  retreat 
she  sends  word  on  deck  that  she  is  so  humiliated  that 
we  will  not  see  her  again.  .  .  .  Owing  to  the 
storm,  our  run  was  cut  down  to  368  miles  today.  The 
storm  seemed  very  serious  to  us,  but  on  the  log,  the 
officers  described  it  simply  as:  "Rough  sea;  north- 
west gale." 


TUESDAY,  MAY  13. — At  10  o'clock  this  morning  we 
ran  into  a  smooth  sea,  and  the  sun  struggled  out.    By 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND   AFRICA.          471 

11  A.  M.  all  the  emigrants  were  on  deck,  chattering  as 
usual.  .  .  .  The  chief  steward  gave  us  declaration 
blanks  at  breakfast ;  which  means  we  are  nearing  New 
York.  .  .  .  We  are  in  communication  today  with 
five  other  steamships,  and  Cape  Race.  The  cost  of  a 
wireless  message  of  ten  words  to  the  United  States  is 
marked  on  the  bulletin  board  as  $3.80.  .  .  .  Every 
day  of  the  voyage  we  have  had  a  different  fish  for  din- 
ner ;  apparently  as  fresh  as  when  caught.  I  shall  long 
remember  the  King  fish  as  the  best  of  the  lot.  The 
butter  is  also  surprisingly  fresh,  considering  the  fact 
that  no  farmers  can  come  in  with  a  fresh  supply.  I 
shall  always  remember  my  voyage  on  the  "Canada" 
as  the  most  endurable  I  have  ever  made ;  and  in  my 
time  I  have  been  a  passenger  on  two  dozen  different 
ships.  The  passengers  are  quiet  and  polite,  and  there 
has  been  no  talk  of  Sports ;  no  games  of  any  kind  are 
played,  and  it  has  been  an  ideal  voyage  in  all  respects, 
except  two  days  of  bad  weather.  .  .  .  The  barber, 
a  German,  intends  to  quit.  He  says  he  likes  the 
French  crew ;  that  he  gets  along  better  with  them  than 
he  got  along  with  his  own  countrymen  on  some  boats, 
but  he  is  not  earning  as  much  as  he  thinks  he  should. 
A  small  passenger  list  is  pleasant  for  the  passengers, 
but  disastrous  to  the  ship's  employees.  .  .  .  We 
had  artichokes  for  dinner  today.  I  wonder  where  the 
idea  originated  that  they  are  good  to  eat?  They  seem 
to  be  very  popular  in  Italy;  I  saw  great  stacks  of 
them  in  Naples  and  Palermo.  .  .  .  One  of  the 
women  passengers  appeared  at  dinner  tonight  wearing 
an  automobile  bonnet  and  gauntlet  gloves.  I  do  not 
bother  myself  much  about  taste  in  women's  dress,  but 


472  TRAVEL  LETTERS  PROM 

that  shocked  me.  Another  woman  passenger  is  too 
ill  to  appear  in  the  dining-room  for  her  meals,  but  is 
able  to  sit  in  the  smoking-room  every  evening,  and 
puff  cigarettes.  I'll  never  become  accustomed  to 
women  smoking.  .  .  .  The  young  man  who  paints 
pictures  in  oil,  and  who  has  a  shock  of  hair  which  he 
never  combs,  is  extremely  good-natured.  Which  means 
that  he  can't  paint  much.  A  genius  is  always  cross 
and  impolite.  .  .  .  The  emigrants  are  not  allowed 
to  buy  beer,  so  those  in  the  second  cabin  buy  it,  and 
hand  it  over  to  the  emigrants.  I  cannot  see  much  dif- 
ference between  the  passengers  in  the  second  cabin 
and  the  emigrants.  Many  of  the  second-cabin  passen- 
gers have  friends  among  the  emigrants,  and  visit  them 
a  good  deal.  Two  of  the  second-cabin  passengers  are 
young  French  girls,  accompanied  by  their  mother.  We 
hear  they  are  going  to  the  United  States  to  get  rich 
husbands.  The  opinion  prevails  abroad  that  America 
is  full  of  rich  men  who  will  take  nearly  anything  in 
the  way  of  a  wife.  It  is  a  mistake.  America  has  more 
attractive  girls  than  any  other  country,  and  half  of 
them  are  compelled  to  get  jobs.  .  .  .  The  Ameri- 
cans in  the  first  cabin  live  mainly  in  New  York  and 
Boston ;  we  are  the  only  Westerners.  .  . '  .  One  of 
the  passengers  in  the  first  cabin  is  a  woman  with  two 
children.  She  has  perfect  manners,  and  is  no  doubt  a 
good  woman,  but  I  have  somehow  got  the  notion  that 
her  husband  doesn't  appreciate  her  at  her  true  value. 
The  other  women  say  she  is  All  Soul,  but  probably  her 
husband  thinks  that  is  the  trouble  with  her;  I  never 
knew  a  spiritual  woman  to  please  any  man  except  her 
pastor.  I  am  satisfied  that  within  a  few  hours  after 


NEW   ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          473 

her  arrival  home,  she  will  say  to  her  husband:    "I 
would  like  to  have  a  private  talk  with  you." 


WEDNESDAY,  MAT  14. — The  man  who  intends  to 
quit  traveling  because  he  meets  so  many  disagreeable 
Englishmen,  said  to  me  today :  "An  Englishman  is  as 
crazy  to  know  everything  that  is  going  on  as  a  young 
Jew  traveling-man.  And  what  annoys  me  is  that  the 
Americans  submit  tamely  to  criticism  from  the  Eng- 
lish. Every  day  you  see  English  criticism  of  Ameri- 
cans in  books  and  newspapers,  but  the  Americans  never 
strike  back.  It  isn't  true  that  Americans  attract  at- 
tention abroad  because  of  their  rudeness ;  nine-tenths 
of  the  charges  made  against  American  travelers  are  in- 
vented by  the  English.  Ask  any  American  who  has 
traveled,  and  you  will  find  he  dislikes  the  English.  The 
English  do  not  like  Americans,  and  Americans  might 
as  well  throw  off  their  reserve,  and  aclmit  that  they  do 
not  like  the  English."  .  .  .  The  captain  said  this 
afternoon  that  the  "Princess  Irene,"  the  favorite,  is 
only  twelve  miles  ahead  of  us,  and  that  we  shall  prob- 
ably pass  it  tomorrow  night.  .  .  .  About  sunset, 
there  was  great  cheering  on  the  steerage  deck.  Some 
one  had  reported  land  in  sight,  but  the  report  proved 
untrue.  .  .  .  There  is  a  very  fat  Italian  woman 
in  the  first  cabin,  and  she  has  a  very  fat  daughter. 
Her  husband  is  a  passenger  in  the  second  cabin. 


474  TRAVEL  LETTERS  FROM 

THURSDAY,  MAY  15. — At  the  Captain's  Dinner  this 
evening,  free  champagne  was  served,  in  addition  to 
the  two  kinds  of  wine  we  have  had  free  twice  a  day 
since  leaving  Naples.  The  captain,  whose  name  is 
Bouleuc,  made  a  speech  in  broken  English.  Sometime 
tonight  we  shall  reach  New  York,  and  cast  anchor  un- 
til daylight,  when  the  doctor,  customs  officers  and  im- 
migration officers  will  come  on  board  to  see  if  they  can 
find  anything  suspicious.  .  .  .  People  are  as  proud 
of  ability  to  speak  French  as  they  are  proud  of  art  or 
musical  culture.  I  know  an  American  woman  on 
board  who  has  been  reading  French  books  all  the  way 
from  Naples ;  yet  she  confessed  to  me  that  she  knows 
very  little  French.  She  simply  wanted  the  reputation 
(which  she  did  not  deserve)  of  being  a  French  scholar. 
An  American  man  whom  I  know  very  well,  sharply 
criticises  the  French  of  a  woman  who  sits  at  the  cap- 
tain's table,  and  who  talks  constantly  and  volubly  in 
French  with  the  captain.  Yet  the  man  confessed  to 
me  that  he  knows  only  enough  French  to  "get  along." 
.  .  .  We  thought  of  remaining  up  until  we  could 
see  the  lights  of  New  York,  but  abandoned  the  idea 
at  9 :  30,  and  went  to  bed. 


FRIDAY,  MAY  16. — When  I  awoke  this  morning, 
the  "Canada"  was  lying  off  Sandy  Hook,  in  company 
with  eight  other  ships  that  had  arrived  during  the  night, 
and  were  waiting  for  the  port  officers.  Among  the 
ships  was  the  "Princess  Irene,"  the  Favorite.  It  had 


NEW  ZEALAND,  AUSTRALIA,  AND  AFRICA.          475 

a  start  of  twenty-four  hours,  as  it  did  not  stop  at  Pa- 
lermo, but  we  arrived  as  soon  as  it  did.  .  .  .  We 
landed  at  10  A.  M.,  and  greatly  admired  every  man, 
woman,  child  and  building  we  saw.  The  first  thing 
we  did  was  to  make  a  dash  for  the  Pennsylvania  Sta- 
tion, where  we  arranged  to  leave  for  Home  at  5  p.  M. 
.  .  .  What  a  wonderful  building  the  Pennsylvania 
Station  is!  Nothing  else  like  it  in  the  world;  except 
a  few  blocks  away,  where  may  be  found  the  New  York 
Central  Station,  which  is  still  finer.  ...  I  showed 
Adelaide  as  much  of  New  York  as  I  could  from  10 
A.  M.  to  5  P.  M.  In  Johannesburg,  we  paid  fifteen 
cents  street-car  fare  each  to  the  zoological  gardens. 
In  New  York,  we  went  three  or  four  times  the  distance 
for  five  cents,  on  the  way  passing  under  a  great  river. 
This  is  some  of  the  Robbery  to  which  we  Americans 
are  compelled  to  submit.  .  .  .  When  we  wanted  a 
lunch,  we  went  into  a  beautiful  place,  and  paid  sixty- 
five  cents  for  all  two  healthy  Americans  cared  to  eat. 
This  in  wicked,  extravagant  New  York.  .  .  .  Some 
of  the  buildings  we  saw  were  thirty-eight  stories  high, 
and  the  streets  through  which  we  passed  cannot  be 
duplicated  anywhere.  .  .  .  We  wanted  a  guide  to 
show  us  about  quickly.  We  secured  a  bright  young 
man  from  the  Postal  Telegraph  Co.  He  was  polite, 
intelligent  and  capable.  What  do  you  suppose  this 
Robber  Corporation  charged  us  for  his  services? 
Thirty  cents  an  hour.  .  .  .  Soon  after  we  left  the 
Pennsylvania  Station,  our  train  passed  under  the  Hud- 
son river,  and  emerged  in  New  Jersey.  This  state  is 
not  a  fair  sample  of  the  country  in  which  we  live,  but 


476  TRAVEL  LETTERS. 

how  we  enjoyed  seeing  it!  The  green  at  Home  is  a 
healthier  and  better-looking  green  than  the  green  in 
the  tropics. 


SATURDAY,  MAY  17. — We  have  spent  this  day  pass- 
ing through  Ohio  and  Indiana.  They  are  better  states 
than  New  Jersey,  and  our  enthusiasm  is  increasing. 
We  are  passengers  on  an  all-steel  train,  and  in  no  other 
country  in  the  world  are  equally  good  railroad  accom- 
modations to  be  had.  .  .  .  Early  in  the  afternoon, 
nearly  a  thousand  miles  from  the  sea,  we  came  to  the 
fourth  or  fifth  city  of  the  world :  Chicago.  An  Amer- 
ican we  saw  last  in  New  Zealand,  Dr.  Beeson,  met  us 
at  this  place.  Our  social  relations  are  rapidly  im- 
proving. 


SUNDAY,  MAY  18. — This  morning,  when  the  conduc- 
tor came  in  to  take  my  tickets,  he  said : 

"Why,  hello!" 

I  knew  him :  we  were  getting  almost  in  sight  of 
Home.  When  we  went  into  the  dining-car,  the  negro 
waiter  spoke  to  us  by  name.  .  .  .  Shortly  after- 
wards, the  conductor  sat  down  beside  us,  and,  looking 
out  of  the  south  window,  said : 

"I  never  knew  before  you  could  see  Potato  Hill  so 
plainly  from  this  side  of  the  river." 

Then  the  Pullman  conductor*  came  in,  and  said : 

"The  next  station  is  Atchison." 


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